Trump claims he spent 7-hour deposition ‘educating’ Letitia James – live

Michael Cohen has suggested he will file a countersuit against Donald Trump, who he said should have listened to lawyers who told him that doing so would be “a mistake”.

The former president had slapped a $500m lawsuit on Wednesday against his former lawyer Mr Cohen alleging a breach of his attorney-client relationship and unjust enrichment, among other claims.

On Thursday’s Political Breakdown podcast, Mr Cohen weighed in on the lawsuit against him.

Sebastian Miño-Bucheli reports on what he said:

Trump’s team will want to make as much political hay as they can now, with the aim of trying to build up a momentum that would be difficult to stop once the voting for the Republican presidential nominees begins.

Not what you want to see during the morning news shows (especially while on a treadmill at the gym).

LinkedIn co-founder and major Democratic donor Reid Hoffman is helping to fund E Jean Carroll’s rape case against Donald Trump, it has been revealed.

Ms Carroll has claimed that Mr Trump raped her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s.

On Thursday, Mr Trump’s attorneys made court filings accusing Ms Carroll of intentionally failing to disclose that Mr Hoffman was funding her case.

A federal judge ruled that Mr Trump’s attorneys can question his rape accuser about the funding when the case heads to trial.

The judge also rejected a request from the former president’s team to delay the trial start date – after they claimed there needed to be a cooling off period after Mr Trump’s arrest in the hush money case.

Michael Cohen has suggested he will file a countersuit against Donald Trump, who he said should have listened to lawyers who told him that doing so would be “a mistake”.

The former president had slapped a $500m lawsuit on Wednesday against his former lawyer Mr Cohen alleging a breach of his attorney-client relationship and unjust enrichment, among other claims.

On Thursday’s Political Breakdown podcast, Mr Cohen weighed in on the lawsuit against him.

“This will be a civil suit that’s brought by him, with a countersuit. So, could you imagine, in a case that you’re the plaintiff on, despite the fact that you’ll be technically a defendant in the countersuit, that you’re now not going to answer questions?”

“That’s fantastic,” Mr Cohen said sarcastically.

Mr Cohen also dubbed the former president’s lawyers “the clown show, crackerjack lawyers” and dubbed the new case as a “David and Goliath” story.

The lawyer referred to himself as David and “the big, 3,000 pound gorilla over there” as Goliath.

“At the end of the day, I’m gonna hit him again with another rock right in the forehead, because the documents are stupid. They don’t make any sense,” Mr Cohen said.

“He’s gonna get countersued, there’s no doubt about that one, for what he’s doing.”

The Senate’s lone Black Republican member is entering the 2024 race.

Sen Tim Scott on Wednesday announced the launch of an exploratory political campaign for the Republican nomination; in doing so, he also previewed what is likely to be the defining weakness of his campaign. His announcement interview carried no mention of Donald Trump and reflected little of the actual realities of today’s modern-day GOP.

An Arizona congressman and fierce Trump ally has announced a bill aimed at stripping Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office of any federal funding in revenge for the prosecution of Donald Trump by Mr Bragg. It faces a steep road to passage in House, which is controlled by a thin GOP majority. It will not pass the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

“District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran on a campaign pledge to indict President Trump. Bragg took the unprecedented action of converting alleged minor business misdemeanors to 34 individual felonies in an attempt to put President Trump behind bars and humiliate him and his supporters,” he told The Daily Caller.

Donald Trump has claimed that court officials “were crying” when he was indicted on charges of business fraud.

The ex-US president has become the first former US president to face criminal charges after the indictment on 30 March by a Manhattan grand jury in a probe over hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

During a fawning interview this week with Fox’s Tucker Carlson, Mr Trump described the courtroom staff as “incredible.”

The origins of Donald Trump’s current legal woes date all the way back to his first bid for the presidency, when he faced Hillary Clinton as a mostly-untested political newcomer and was (at the time) facing a barrage of criticism over revolting sexist remarks made on a leaked Access Hollywood tape.

With the US now facing the historic prospect of a former president being prosecuted as a criminal in open court, let’s go back to the beginning, and look at the major milestones of the Stormy Daniels saga and how it led to this moment:

Donald Trump has claimed that he spent his seven-hour deposition “educating” New York Attorney General Letitia James about his “American success story”.

The former president appeared for a deposition in New York on Thursday in the civil case brought against him, his adult children and the Trump Organization claiming that they gave lenders false financial statements overvaluing assets over a decade of deals.

During seven hours of testimony, Mr Trump “spent nearly seven hours today describing in detail his extraordinary business success,” according to his lawyer Chris Kise.

“This is an American success story. Last I checked, capitalism is still legal in America.“

His willingness to answer questions comes after he pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times when he sat for his first deposition in the case in August.

His appearance marked his first return to New York since he was arraigned on a 34-count indictment in the hush money case last week.