NEW YORK—Standing outside the Manhattan Criminal Court on May 16, members of the House Freedom Caucus expressed support for former President Donald Trump amid him being on trial in what they called a sham.
Members who were there included the chairman of the hardline conservative group, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), as well as Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), and Michael Guest (R-Texas).
Rep. Michael Walz (R-Fla.), who is not a member of the caucus, also attended.
President Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is on trial on 34 counts over his alleged role in the classification of payments under an NDA to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. With this prosecution, President Trump is the first former president in history to be indicted. The trial began on April 15 and is now in its fifth week.
During a press conference outside the courthouse, Mr. Good called the trial an example of “what lengths the Democratic Party will go to to try to rig or steal another election.”
“They tried to do it in 2020. They’re doing it here again in ‘24 by trying to keep the nominee off the ballot, by trying to keep the nominee from campaigning, by trying to ruin the nominee financially and we’re seeing that today,” he said.
Mr. Gaetz called the case “the Mr. Potato Head doll of crimes where they had to stick together a bunch of things that did not belong together.”
Members of the caucus went after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been testifying over the past few days. He allegedly wrote the checks made to Ms. Daniels in exchange for her keeping silent about an alleged affair President Trump had with her in 2006.
Other Trump allies that have attended the trial in support of the former president include House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.); Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Cory Mills (R-Fla.); and Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
During his testimony this week, Mr. Cohen told the court that there was an alleged backchannel set up for him to communicate with President Trump via Robert Costello, a former prosecutor, who would relay information to the former president. Mr. Costello worked for President Trump.
“It’s all back channel, sort of I-Spy-ish,” Mr. Cohen said. “Never mentioning President Trump, just using code words.”
Mr. Costello said in a June 2018 email that was displayed in the court, “Since you jumped off the phone rather abruptly, I did not get a chance to tell you that my friend has communicated to me that he is meeting with his client this evening and he added that if there was anything you wanted to convey you should tell me and my friend will bring it up for discussion this evening.”
The emails, prosecutors alleged, suggested that Mr. Costello told him that Mr. Cohen shouldn’t speak to federal officials. Mr. Cohen also in court said he believes that Mr. Costello became President Trump’s de facto messenger, delivering instructions to “stay in the fold, don’t flip, don’t speak.”
“The back channel was Bob Costello to Rudy to Rudy to President Trump,” Mr. Cohen said on the stand on May 14, referring to former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Jurors also saw an April 2018 email in which Mr. Costello said he had spoken with Mr. Giuliani.
“You are ‘loved,’” Mr. Costello wrote. “lf you want to call me I will give you the details. I told him everything you asked me to and he said they knew that. There was never a doubt and they are in our corner.”
He told him that he should “sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.”
Mr. Cohen earlier testified that President Trump ordered him to pay Ms. Daniels in 2016 and then approved a plan to reimburse Mr. Cohen through multiple invoices that prosecutors say were illegal.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger walked Mr. Cohen through a series of invoices and checks that Mr. Cohen said were falsely marked as paying to retain him for legal services.
“There was no retainer agreement, was there?” she asked.
Mr. Cohen replied, “No, ma'am.”
Under New York law, falsifying business records can be elevated from a misdemeanor to a felony if the crime helped conceal another offense. In President Trump’s case, prosecutors have argued that the payment was effectively a secret contribution to his campaign, violating federal and state laws.
