Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen set for key testimony in hush money case

Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial will resume at Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday morning, with the defendant set to come face to face with his estranged former “fixer” Michael Cohen in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom in what promises to be another explosive week of testimony.

Cohen is the attorney who made the $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels at the heart of the case in the hope of buying her silence about a sexual encounter she claims she had with Mr Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in July 2006, which the Republican’s camp feared could sway the 2016 presidential election in Democrat Hillary Clinton’s favour if it got out.

The former president denies the affair and the 34 felony counts brought against him by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who accuses him of falsifying business records to hide the payout.

Ms Daniels herself took to the witness stand last week to deliver some highly explicit and embarrassing evidence against Mr Trump and more than held her own in response to hostile cross-examination from the defence, which worked hard to discredit her.

The presidential candidate continued to lambast the proceedings over the weekend as he rallied his supporters in New Jersey.

Alex Woodward is covering the trial for The Independent from Manhattan Criminal Court.

This was really his best moment in Wildwood, however.

Absolutely bananas.

Donald Trump praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter during his rally speech in New Jersey on Saturday (11 May). The former US president called the character, played by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, a “wonderful man”, while simultaneously condemning “people who are being released into our country that we don’t want”. Trump delivered his