By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Prosecutors at work Donald Trump‘s criminal hush-money trial aims to ask the former US president questions about civil cases in which he has been found liable for sexual abuse and fraud if he chooses to testify, according to a document made public on Wednesday.
It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to decide whether prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office can ask Trump about those matters during his potential cross-examination, or whether they would be too prejudicial to Trump and not relevant enough to the trial.
The first-ever criminal trial of a former US president began Monday and jury selection is underway.
Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in the November 5 election, is accused of covering up his then-lawyer Michael Cohen‘s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump has pleaded not guilty. He has denied any such meeting with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Prosecutors said in a March 10 message to defense attorneys that if Trump were to testify in the case, they would challenge his credibility by asking him about civil cases in which jurors found he killed writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s. sexually abused and then discredited. her by lying about it.
He denies wrongdoing and is appealing both verdicts, which together ordered him to pay $88.3 million.
Manhattan prosecutors also want to ask him about the civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, in which a judge found Trump and his family real estate company liable for fraudulently appraising properties to deceive insurers and lenders.
Trump was ordered to pay $454.2 million in fines and penalties in that case. He denies the abuses and has appealed.
Merchan said Tuesday he may hold a hearing on prosecutors’ request to question Trump about those matters Friday if jury selection ends early.
The hush money case is the first of four criminal charges Trump will face in court. It could be the only one to reach a verdict before the elections.
He has also pleaded not guilty in the other cases, which stem from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
(This story has been corrected to say that Trump was found liable for fraudulently valuing properties to deceive insurers, not investors, in paragraph 8)
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
