Donald Trump trial LIVE: Ex-president faces jail for contempt if judge finds he violated gag order in hush money trial

The 12 jurors and their six alternates remained rapt in attention. For 45 minutes they listened to the lead prosecutor lay out the case against former President Donald Trump.

Matthew Colangelo delivered all the B-movie plot drama as he took them on a wild ride from a grim “capture and kill” meeting at Trump Tower to the extraordinary image of President Trump paying off a loyal middleman by signing checks inside the White House. with a cast that included journalists who exposed scandals, a now-disbarred lawyer who recorded his phone calls, and a porn star.

Only one person inside room 1530 seemed unimpressed: the star of the show.

Trump leaned back in his chair, his shoulders drooping at times. He did not once look at the jury while the case against him was presented.

You didn’t have to be an expert in body language to read “there’s nothing to see here” in his posture.

The trial could last six weeks or more as the jury hears evidence alleging that the former president falsified business records to conceal how he had bought a porn star’s silence before the 2016 election.

But on Monday we had the first real vision of the strategies deployed by both parties.

And the court heard from its first witness, David Pecker, former editor of the National Enquirer.

Here’s what we learned from day one of testing the case:

donald trump He appeared to have again violated his gag order on the first day of his testimony in his “hush money” trial in New York.

During an interview at Steve BannonOn Real America’s Voice, Trump attacked the jury.

‘That jury was chosen very quickly. Ninety-five percent are Democrats. The area is mostly all Democratic. It is thought to be a purely Democratic area. “It’s a very unfair situation, I can tell you,” Trump said during the interview.

Judge Merchan has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday morning to consider prosecutors’ arguments that Trump has violated his gag order in several previous comments and should be found guilty of contempt.

Welcome to DailyMail.com’s live coverage by our reporters of Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial.

The former president faces the possibility of jail if he is found guilty of contempt of court on Tuesday morning.

Prosecutors have accused him of violating a gag order in the hush money trial at least seven times by attacking witness Michael Cohen and the jury.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has asked Judge Juan Merchán for a fine of $1,000 for each position. Punishment could range from a warning to a stay behind bars.

Following the contempt, former National Enquirer editor David Pecker will return to the stand to finish his testimony about the ‘catch and kill’ plots allegedly coordinated between Trump and the tabloid.