Tabloid stories, ‘the boss’ and Stormy Daniels in Trump Tower: Key takeaways from the first week of Trump’s trial testimony

This week was Donald Trump’s second week on criminal trial – the first of courtroom testimony – and it was certainly eventful.

Jurors heard from the prosecution’s first witnesses in the case including lengthy testimony from tabloid mogul David Pecker, who outlined the “catch and kill” scheme at the heart of the hush money case.

The former president faced calls for $10,000 fines over gag order violations over his continued attacks on witnesses.

And Americans heard Mr Trump both fume about the landmark trial and use it as a campaign platform on Truth Social and in the courthouse corridors.

Mr Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, in order to stop her coming forward with allegations of a 2006 affair.

Here are the key takeaways from the week:

During opening statements on Monday, prosecutors were direct in laying out the heart of the case, with Manhattan Assistant District Attorney

telling jurors it was about “a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up”.

“The defendant Donald Trump orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his business records, over and over and over again,” Mr Colangelo continued.

The prosecutor then laid out the “catch-and-kill” scheme, arranged between Mr Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen and Mr Pecker to block negative press about Mr Trump.

Mr Colangelo told the jury that while “no politician wants bad press,” evidence will show “this was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy”. “It was election fraud. Pure and simple,” he said.

In the defence’s opening statement, lead attorney Todd Blanche