Gaetz was among the latest group of Trump allies that made a pilgrimage of sorts to Trump’s trial in a show of support. Speaking outside the courthouse, the Florida Republican denounced the trial and case against Trump, starting by questioning the credibility of the star witness for the prosecution — former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

“There is literally no branch of government that Michael Cohen has not lied to,” he said. “He lied to investigators. He lied to the judge who sentenced him. He lied to the United States Congress, and he committed these lies for his own benefit.”

After attacking Judge Juan Merchant, Gaetz went a step further, declaring the whole trial was a farce.

“This is a made-up crime,” he continued. “No other American in the country would be charged with this type of crime. It’s like the Mr. Potato Head doll of crimes where they had to stick together a bunch of things that did not belong together.”

Gaetz concluded his remarks by expressing his loyalty to Trump and affirming the belief that he would win his third bid for election in November.

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“We’re here voluntarily supporting our friend, President Trump, the leader of our movement, the leader of our party, and soon again, the leader of this great country,” he concluded.

As the historic trial enters its 18th day, prosecutors have so far failed to show the “other crime” needed to upgrade Trump’s misdemeanor charges to a felony conviction, according to legal experts.

According to a recent Washington Post-Schar School survey of Washington, D.C., residents, 65% believe crime is “extremely” or “very” serious in the district against 56% in 2023.

The number of Washington, D.C., residents who said they felt “very safe” is also down to 23% from 29% last year. Results from Maryland and Northern Virginia residents showed their attitudes about crime hadn’t changed in the last year, with both hovering at 28% and 15%, respectively, for “extremely” or “very” serious concerns about crime.

Washington, D.C., residents’ increased concerns come despite a 26% decrease in violent crime so far in 2024, including a 32% decrease in carjackings and a 21% decline in homicides. Last year’s 274 homicides marked the deadliest year in the area since 1997, though residents don’t seem to feel that trend is decreasing.

The poll’s results come as some members of Congress have expressed concern for their safety in the area.

“I just want your listeners to understand: Washington, D.C., has become a war zone,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) recently said on Fox News. “I fear for the safety and life of my workers on Capitol Hill walking to and from work.”

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United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said in April that he could safely walk his dog to the U.S. Capitol, but was mocked by Republicans for his input.

House lawmakers recently passed the D.C. Crimes Act, sponsored by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), which aims to tinker with Washington, D.C., crime policies. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser remarked that “the federal government should focus on federal affairs” before the vote, and Washington, D.C., at-large Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton called on the House to vote the issue down.

State and federal authorities accused Christen Woods, a former district head of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, of stealing more than $150,000 to spend on political campaigns. He allegedly misrepresented the missing funds as payments for renovation costs of his union’s headquarters in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. 

“Woods, the head of District 1199C … submitted false bids to the union to ensure Hardy’s newly created and unlicensed construction company was awarded a heavily-inflated bid to renovate a portion of the union hall,” court documents said. 

“The money was then funneled from the construction company to Hardy’s political consulting company, Monroe Press, to fund political work for Wood’s chosen candidates for the 2019 Democratic primary election,” the police criminal complaint noted. “Woods also used union funds to pay fraudulent invoices from Hardy’s consulting company in order to provide financial support for candidates endorsed by Woods. Woods and Hardy utilized financial transactions in order to conceal their theft from the union and to circumvent Pennsylvania campaign finance law and U.S. Department of Labor union reporting requirements.”

The name “Hardy” refers to Tracy Hardy, the former chief of staff to state Sen. Sharif Street, son of former Philadelphia Mayor John Street and the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. If convicted, both Woods and Hardy could face up to 20 years in prison.

“The law is very clear about how unions can support candidates and their campaigns,” Attorney General Michelle Henry said. “These two men are accused of intentionally defrauding a workers’ union with an elaborate scheme to steal and divert money for political purposes.”

Wood denied any wrongdoing through statements issued by his attorneys. His counsel called the charges a “limited, one-sided view.”

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“Mr. Woods did not defraud or conspire to defraud the members of District 1199C for whom he fought throughout his career,” Woods’s lawyers said. “In reality, it was the failure to plan that bring Mr. Woods into this case. That’s not criminal, and it’s unfortunate we are here.”

The charges brought against Woods and Hardy resulted from a five-year investigation by the FBI and Pennsylvania state prosecutors, according to reports.

The investigation became public as the result of the prosecution of Richard Globensky, 39, of Georgia, who pleaded guilty and admitted he stole the jacket and other memorabilia in a $5.6 million scheme that lasted more than a decade.

Globensky admitted he took green jackets, usually awarded after a golfer wins the Masters Tournament, belonging to Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen, along with an Augusta National clubhouse trophy. 

He previously worked for Augusta National, the golf course where the Masters is held, as a warehouse coordinator. Globensky stole and sold millions of dollars worth of memorabilia from 2009 to 2022.

The green jacket was recovered during an FBI operation in which the authorities monitored a private sale of the jacket before finding it and verifying its authenticity. The authorities then questioned the sellers. Globensky previously sold the memorabilia by photographing items that buyers were interested in and then coordinating delivery once a sales price was agreed on.

Globensky faces a prosecutor-endorsed 2 1/2-year sentence behind bars after pleading guilty to one charge, though he could have faced a maximum of 10 years. Sentencing is set for Oct. 29. Though Globensky is based in Georgia, the case is set in Chicago because that’s where some of the stolen items were recovered, according to his attorney.

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The case is one of the largest concerning stolen sports memorabilia, especially for golf.

Palmer died in 2016 but led one of golf’s greatest careers, winning seven major championships, including four Masters, and capturing victory in numerous tour events. He is also the namesake of a popular drink containing iced tea and lemonade sold in stores nationwide.

Menendez spent most of Tuesday sitting by himself at a defense table as jurors who claimed they could not serve were interviewed by Judge Sidney H. Stein.

Reasons ranged from medical troubles to work commitments and travel. Others claimed they had heard about the bribery trial and could not be impartial. 

“I’m a news junkie, and I’ve learned about the case already significantly. I knew it was Bob Menendez the second I walked in,” one juror said.

Stein said most people had heard of Menendez before asking if the juror could still decide the case based on trial testimony. The juror, identified only by number, said he could, according to the Associated Press. 

Menendez, 70, has been charged with bribery, extortion, fraud, and obstruction of justice, along with acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.

Prosecutors allege he took bribes of cash, gold, and a luxury car in exchange for using his considerable political influence to help secure military sales for Egypt and to promote Qatari interests.

He is also charged with accepting gold, cash, and gifts, including a Mercedes-Benz convertible for his wife, from a New Jersey real estate developer in exchange for the senator to have unrelated federal bank charges against the real estate agent go away. 

Menendez has since stepped down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee but has not resigned from Congress. 

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There is a list of high-profile politicians that could be called to the stand, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Stein said Tuesday. Other potential witnesses included former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

Menendez has pleaded not guilty. 

The incident took place Thursday after at least one CBP officer in the Laredo area spotted an incoming tractor-trailer that was marked for transporting the common carnival treat, according to a release from CBP officials.

“Following a non-intrusive inspection system examination and deployment of CBP canines, CBP officers discovered 15 packages containing a total of 37 pounds of alleged cocaine hidden within the conveyance,” the release said.

The substance was later confirmed to be cocaine, and the narcotics held a street value of roughly $496,879, according to the CBP.

“Our frontline officers continue to maintain resolute vigilance and that dedication to the mission coupled with an effective use of technology resulted in the interception of a significant amount of cocaine,” Port Director Albert Flores, Laredo Port of Entry, said.

“Seizures like these reinforce the importance and necessity of our ongoing border security mission.”

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Using candy to hide or disguise deadly drugs has grown in popularity throughout the United States in the last few years.

In December, at least five children in Virginia were taken to the hospital after ingesting fentanyl-laced gummy bears that one student had accidentally brought from home.

A cause of death was not announced, just that he “passed away peacefully.” While he was serving as an assistant district attorney in Allegheny County and a pathologist in a Pittsburgh hospital, he became involved with the analysis of former President John F. Kennedy’s death.

Following Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Wecht was commissioned to review the Warren Commission’s report, which concluded that Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was the sole bad actor in the assassination. Wecht then became obsessive over a theory that Oswald was not alone in the shooting.

After reviewing video footage and autopsy reports, Wecht concluded that the finding of a single bullet killing Kennedy and injuring former Texas Gov. John Connally in Dallas was “absolute nonsense.”

Some disagreed with his theory. Former Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania called the theory “an asinine, pseudoscientific sham at best.”

His willingness to challenge official findings, however, made him something of a go-to pathologist for high-profile deaths. He also worked on cases such as Elvis Presley and JonBenet Ramsey. He also appeared on TV before the O.J. Simpson homicide trial in 1994, becoming a frequent guest on the Today show and Good Morning America to explain the significance of blood samples.

He was praised by some for his work; attorney Alan Dershowitz called him the “Sherlock Holmes of forensic sciences.”

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When asked about the possibility of his own death after working on so many celebrities’, he said his biggest fear was growing dependence on his family as he aged. 

“I want to be alive when I die. Think about that,” Wecht said in a 2009 interview with the Associated Press. “I mean, OK, what is life?”

The longtime Democratic senator from New Jersey is expected to dig deep and reveal his penchant for hoarding big gold bars and his wife’s alleged lies and blame his father’s gambling problem and death for decisions that led him down a path that ended in a sprawling 18-count federal indictment, according to court documents. 

Menendez is accused of receiving bribes from 2018 to 2022. 

In exchange, he handed out political favors for the governments of Qatar and Egypt, as well as for co-defendants Wael Hana, Fred Daibes, and Jose Uribe, prosecutors claim.

Hana, an American citizen who emigrated from Egypt, had a string of failed business deals in New Jersey less than a decade ago, including a truck stop, an Italian restaurant, and a limo service, and had a friend who started dating Menendez. Soon thereafter, Hana’s fortunes started to turn around. He was introduced to a growing circle of top Egyptian officials by Menendez, who was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Hana won sole control over certifying all halal food being imported into Egypt. He had gone from being in debt and unable to pay medical bills to an international power broker who bragged about his luxury watch collection.  

He earned so much money that he was able to use some of it to buy gold bars and bribe Menendez for other things, prosecutors allege. 

The real rub was whether Hana was an agent of the Egyptian government all along or just a very unlucky guy who suddenly hit the jackpot after meeting Menendez.   

In 2017, the 70-year-old dodged conviction on a laundry list of other corruption charges, but legal experts claim this case, which was brought by the Justice Department, presents a bigger threat to Menendez and the country. 

“Any time an individual is indicted two times in a row for, let’s call it, public corruption, the odds are not in his favor,” Chris Adams, a defense attorney at the New Jersey law firm Greenbaum Rowe, which was part of Menendez’s 2017 legal team, told the Washington Post. “My view as a defense attorney is that this is a much stronger case for the government.”

The Washington Examiner will break down some of the most pressing questions about the trial, what’s at stake, key players, and what his colleagues in Congress are saying about it. 

What are the charges?

Menendez faces 16 criminal counts, including bribery, fraud, and foreign-agent offenses. Prosecutors allege he took bribes of cash, gold, and a luxury car in exchange for using his considerable political influence to help secure military sales for Egypt and to promote Qatari interests.

He is also charged with accepting gold, cash, and gifts, including a Mercedes-Benz convertible for his wife, from a New Jersey real estate developer in exchange for the senator to have unrelated federal bank charges against the real estate agent go away. 

Menendez has since stepped down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Menendez, who may take the stand, has accused prosecutors of misrepresenting the normal work of a congressional office and predicted he would be exonerated. 

He has pleaded not guilty. 

If he wins, he has left open the possibility of running for reelection in November. 

Who are the key players?

Wael Hana

Prosecutors claim Hana was a central figure in the scheme to ensnare one of the country’s top politicians. They claimed he capitalized on his relationship with Menendez not only to benefit himself but also to steer aid and weapons to Egypt. 

He has pleaded not guilty.

Nadine Menendez

Menendez’s wife of less than five years is accused of being a go-between between her husband, Egyptian intelligence officials, and the men who were looking for political favors from the senator, according to prosecutors. Her trial was supposed to start on Monday but was postponed after she had surgery and needed time to recover. 

It is now slated to get underway in July. 

She has pleaded not guilty.  

Jose Uribe

The former New Jersey insurance broker pleaded guilty to seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, honest-services fraud, and obstruction of justice.

He admitted to seeking the senator’s help to make state insurance fraud investigations that involved his friends disappear. 

“I knew that giving a car in return for influencing a United States senator to stop a criminal investigation was wrong, and I deeply regret my actions,” Uribe said. 

Fred Daibes

Prosecutors claim the New Jersey real estate developer gave Menendez gold, cash, and furniture in exchange for the senator to have unrelated federal bank charges against Daibes go away. 

Some of the money was allegedly used to get the senator to help line up financing for a stalled real estate project. 

Investigators found 11 gold bars linked to Daibes during a June 2022 search of Menendez’s home. They also found Daibes’s fingerprints and DNA on 10 envelopes containing more than $80,000, according to court records. 

Three months before the search, Nadine Menendez sold two 1-kilogram bars of gold that were also traced back to Daibes and worth about $120,000. 

Daibes has pleaded not guilty. 

How long is the trial supposed to last?

Several weeks, until at least July.

What is Menendez’s defense?

Recent court filings indicate that Menendez’s defense strategy includes blaming his wife and claiming that the large amounts of cash and gold he had in his New Jersey home were a “coping mechanism” that can be traced back to his father. 

When federal investigators searched his home in June 2022, they found more than $480,000 in cash that had been stashed in envelopes and coats. They also found 13 gold bars worth more than $100,000. 

They also seized another $80,000 from Nadine Menendez’s safety deposit box at a nearby bank.

According to the senator, he had a “habit” of withdrawing thousands in cash each month from his savings account in case of emergencies.

He claimed it was due to his family’s experience as Cuban refugees who had their money and possessions confiscated by the Cuban government and were only left with a small amount of cash they had managed to stash in their house. 

Psychiatrist Karen Rosenbaum, who is expected to testify, claimed in a letter sent to prosecutors that Menendez “experienced trauma when his father, a compulsive gambler, died by suicide after Senator Menendez eventually decided to discontinue paying off his father’s gambling debts.” 

She claimed Menendez developed a mental condition that was left untreated and “resulted in a fear of scarcity for the senator and the development of a longstanding coping mechanism of routinely withdrawing and storing cash in his home.” The name of the mental condition was redacted. 

Menendez may also throw his wife under the bus, arguing she was the mastermind behind the allegations of bribery.

“Senator Menendez intends to present a defense arguing [in part] that he lacked the requisite knowledge of much of the conduct and statements of his wife, Nadine, and thus lacks scienter and did not agree to join any of the charged conspiracies,” his attorneys wrote in a court filing. 

Who is representing him?

Menendez dropped his previous criminal defense team at Winston and Strawn and hired its rivals at Paul Hastings, Reuters reported. Menendez’s new lawyers include Adam Fee, who spent five years as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Avi Weitzman, who spent nearly seven. Weitzman is a partner at Paul Hastings. 

What are Menendez’s colleagues saying?

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and other high-ranking Democrats have called on Menendez to resign. 

He has refused.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) hasn’t held his tongue, referring to Menendez multiple times as a “sleazeball.”

When asked by CNN what it says about the upper chamber of Congress that Menendez is still in office, Fetterman quipped, “I don’t know what it says other than they guess they’re just OK with having a sleazeball in the Senate.” 

Menendez is the only senator to be indicted in two unrelated criminal investigations. 

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Only 12 U.S. senators have been indicted while in office. 

Six were convicted. 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, falsified business records to cover his reimbursement to Cohen of the payment to silence a porn star in the final days of his 2016 campaign. Trump, who has denied the affair, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and kept his eyes closed in court on Monday morning during portions of Cohen’s testimony.

Cohen, 57, worked as an executive and lawyer for the Trump Organization for nearly 10 years and once said he would take a bullet for Trump. Now, sitting across from the former president in a criminal courtroom, Cohen testified about the time Trump offered him a job after Cohen handed him a $100,000 bill for work his previous firm did for one of Trump’s companies.

“I was honored. I was taken by surprise, and I agreed,” Cohen said, according to reporters in the courtroom, adding that Trump never paid the bill. The 12-member jury was watching intensely as prosecutor Susan Hoffinger questioned Cohen.

Cohen accepts title as ‘fixer’

Early into questioning from prosecutors, Cohen was asked by Hoffinger about whether his longtime label of “fixer” was accurate, prompting Cohen to say the title was “fair.” Cohen’s response came after he admitted to the prosecutor that he lied in his past to help his former boss, saying, “It’s what was needed to accomplish the task.”

While Monday marks the first time jurors saw Cohen in person, his presence has loomed large over the trial. Witnesses have spoken about him dozens of times, while Trump’s defense lawyers have attacked his credibility from the trial’s outset, calling him an untrustworthy liar in their opening statement.

Trump’s son Eric tweeted from within the courtroom, “I have never seen anything more rehearsed!,” in response to Cohen’s testimony.

Ex-fixer recounts crucial 2015 meeting with National Enquirer publisher

Cohen testified that he met frequently with then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker in an effort to stop former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s allegations about a relationship she said she had with Trump. Cohen said he would use the encrypted Signal application to communicate with Pecker and editor Dylan Howard in their bid to quash McDougal’s story.

The ex-fixer said Pecker stated in June 2016 that it would cost $150,000 to “control the story.” Cohen later relayed the message back to Trump, claiming his boss said, “No problem, I’ll take care of it.”

Cohen explained that it was the National Enquirer publisher that would first lay out of the funds to purchase McDougal’s story, and then, Trump would pay Pecker back. The manner in which Trump would reimburse Pecker was not immediately determined, Cohen testified.

Trump warned ‘a lot of women’ would come forward after 2016 election announcement: Cohen

Early into his testimony, Cohen said that Trump informed him ahead of his 2016 presidential campaign announcement that “a lot of women” would come forward with negative allegations about him.

According to Cohen, Trump said: “You know that when this comes out — meaning the announcement — just be prepared, there’s going to be a lot of women coming forward.”

Secret recording caps off morning of testimony

Prosecutors played audio of a September 2016 conversation between Cohen and Trump that the former fixer surreptitiously recorded. The jury has already heard this recording previously.

“Told you about Charleston. I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I’m going to do that right away,” Cohen is heard saying to Trump.

Prosecutors intended for the recording to support Cohen’s narrative that he was often communicating to Trump updates about his progress on the McDougal hush money deal. In the recording, Cohen merely mentioned Pecker’s name and Trump seemed to become aware that Cohen was referring to that deal, according to the New York Times live blog.

The jury relistened to the recording on Monday with Cohen’s added context.

Former president gets boost from new allies in court

Flanked by political allies, including Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Trump called his hush money trial a “political witch-hunt” before heading into the courtroom on Monday.

“I should be out campaigning now instead of sitting in a very cold courthouse all day long,” Trump told reporters.

Last week, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) made a brief appearance at the courthouse in support of the former president.

Judge limits prosecution’s ability to dredge up former CFO’s severance agreement

Shortly after entering the courtroom on Monday, Judge Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors won’t be allowed to introduce evidence of former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg‘s severance agreement.

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“It seems to me that this would be used to justify an explanation for why somebody is not here,” Merchan said, adding that the severance payment doesn’t seem to prove anything or move the ball in any one direction.

When Cohen returned to the stand after a break, he began discussing the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels, which is at the heart of the 34-count indictment against Trump.

A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted last month shows that 48% of the district’s residents disapprove of her job as mayor, compared to only 46% who approve of her job performance. The last time the survey was conducted, in February 2022, she had a 58% approval rating to 37% disapproval rating.

The pollster says the April 19-29 survey, which involved 655 residents of the district, is the first time her approval rating has fallen below a majority since taking office in 2015. Bowser was elected to a third term as mayor in 2022.

Among the troubles dogging Bowser are homelessness and crime. Crime in the district has made national headlines after several high-profile incidents, with two members of Congress being victims of crime within the District of Columbia last year. Bowser has said that early statistics for this year have indicated a downturn from the 2023 peak in criminal acts, with several options being pushed to improve the situation in Washington.

When asked how Bowser has handled the district’s key issues, she received poor marks from Washington residents. Of those surveyed, 76% believe she is doing a not-so-good to poor job addressing homelessness, while only 20% think she is doing an excellent or good job.

Homeless encampments remain a problem in Washington, but one of the larger encampments at McPherson Square, located only blocks from the White House, was cleared out by the National Park Service last year.

When asked about how Bowser is doing with reducing crime in the district, 72% said she is doing a not-so-good or poor job, and only 25% said she is doing an excellent or good job. On each extreme, 36% said she is doing a poor job, and only 3% said she is doing an excellent job.

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Bowser’s best issue, based on the polling data, was with improving downtown Washington. A majority, 55%, said that she is doing an excellent or good job, while 40% said she is doing a not-so-good or poor job with the matter.

The mayor dodged a bullet by getting Monumental Sports, the owner of the Washington Capitals and the Washington Wizards, to agree to a deal to remain at Capital One Arena after a deal for the teams to move to Virginia fell through.