The appearance of the House speaker, second in the line of succession to the president, is a politically stunning and significant show of Republican support for the indicted Trump, coming from the highest levels of party power.

Johnson is using the powerful pulpit of the speaker’s office to attack and tear down the U.S. judicial system, criticizing the courts as biased against the former president, insisting he has done “nothing wrong.”

Cohen raised the specter of extortion during a conversation with Mark Pomerantz, who had led the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of Trump before leaving the office in 2022.

“Yes, I recall making a statement like that … that they were extorting Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified.

“In your mind, there were two choices: pay or don’t pay and the story comes out,” Blanche said.

“Yes, sir,” Cohen replied.

In 2018, Trump decried Daniels’ claims as “false and extortionist accusations.”

In her testimony last week, Daniels denied trying to extort Trump, calling the allegation “false.”

With prosecutors’ hush money case against Donald Trump barreling toward its end, defense lawyers are pressing former attorney Michael Cohen on his criminal history and past lies, trying to convince jurors not to believe the star witness’ pivotal testimony.

With the jury gone for the day, legal arguments are ongoing about the parameters of potential testimony from a campaign finance law expert the prosecution wants to call as a witness should the defense end up calling their expert to the witness stand.

Trump’s lawyers have said they may call Bradley A. Smith, a former Bill Clinton-appointed Republican Federal Election Commission member, to refute the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments at issue in the trial amounted to campaign finance violations.

By midafternoon, many of Trump’s congressional allies had not returned from the lunch break. Rep. Matt Gaetz however — who sat in the first row of the gallery behind Trump — remained for the trial and missed a key committee vote Thursday that moved to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for not turning over audio related to President Joe Biden’s classified documents case.

With the jury gone for the day, legal arguments are ongoing about the parameters of potential testimony from a campaign finance law expert the prosecution wants to call as a witness should the defense end up calling their expert to the witness stand.