Donald J. Trump first ran for president practically a decade in the past.
Now, as he runs once more in a political local weather that he helped create, his Manhattan felony trial is partly a referendum on his ways throughout that first marketing campaign.
The trial’s very premise is that prosecutors consider Mr. Trump orchestrated an election interference scheme. Confronted with damaging tales that would have doomed his marketing campaign — intercourse scandals involving a porn star and a Playboy mannequin, for instance — he hid them, the prosecutors say.
However in a growth that may bolster their case, prosecutors on Monday secured permission from the choose to confess proof related to Mr. Trump’s total political technique in 2016. A lot of it bears the previous president’s imprint: aggressive tweets, false denials, coordination with a tabloid writer and extra.
The choose’s ruling confirmed how the weapons that labored so effectively for Mr. Trump then are being turned in opposition to him within the courtroom now.
The methods prosecutors highlighted Monday weren’t invented by Mr. Trump to be used in his marketing campaign; they’re behaviors he exhibited all through his life as a businessman and a reality-television star. However in fashionable American political historical past, such uncooked ways had not often been seen at such a excessive stage.
One instance is Mr. Trump’s relationship with The Nationwide Enquirer tabloid and its writer, David Pecker, who is predicted to seem as a witness.
The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace, which introduced the case, obtained permission from the choose on Monday to introduce proof associated to a 2015 assembly amongst Mr. Trump, Mr. Pecker and Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen. A prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, mentioned on Monday that the three males had “conspired to affect the 2016 election.”
That assembly laid the groundwork for hush-money offers with a porn star, Stormy Daniels, and a Playboy mannequin, Karen McDougal. However one other results of that assembly, Mr. Steinglass mentioned, had been explosive headlines about Mr. Trump’s opponents within the Republican main, together with these claiming that Ben Carson had dedicated “medical malpractice” and that Senator Ted Cruz had a “household connection to J.F.Ok.’s murderer.”
A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Todd Blanche, protested the admission of proof associated to that assembly, saying that newspaper publishers met with candidates “on a regular basis,” and that there was nothing improper about it, not to mention unlawful.
That admission labored in opposition to him. The choose, Juan M. Merchan, mentioned that he was glad that Mr. Blanche believed that there was nothing unsuitable with the assembly — as a result of it meant that he mustn’t thoughts that the proof can be launched.
“There isn’t a cause to not permit it in,” Justice Merchan mentioned.
Mr. Steinglass received once more when he persuaded Justice Merchan to confess proof of the Trump marketing campaign in disaster after the publication in 2016 of the notorious “Entry Hollywood” tape, by which Mr. Trump boasted about grabbing ladies by their genitals.
“The video despatched the marketing campaign right into a tailspin,” Mr. Steinglass mentioned.
He supplied up an electronic mail despatched by a Washington Put up reporter to Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign spokeswoman. Mr. Steinglass mentioned that Ms. Hicks had forwarded the alternate to Stephen Ok. Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and different members of the marketing campaign staff, “suggesting that their response ought to be to disclaim, deny, deny.” Ultimately, he mentioned, Mr. Bannon despatched it to Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Blanche once more protested, however was once more rebuffed. The choose mentioned he would permit jurors to see the e-mail, saying that the following thread was related.
The exchanges that prosecutors and protection attorneys debated on Monday underscored Mr. Trump’s penchant for delegating soiled work to others, giving himself far within the course of.
The hush-money offers labored that means: Mr. Cohen paid off Ms. Daniels, whereas The Nationwide Enquirer purchased Ms. McDougal’s silence. (Mr. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying enterprise data associated to his reimbursement of Mr. Cohen.)
That behavior continues to be on show this yr, and might be useful provided that Justice Merchan has barred Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and the choose’s family.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump posted on social media a video of Laura Loomer, a political ally, within the park outdoors the courthouse. Ms. Loomer, talking right into a bullhorn, insinuated that the choose’s household was politically compromised.
Had Mr. Trump mentioned that himself, he would have risked violating the choose’s gag order.