Trump suing Michael Cohen, as NYC court staff laugh off ‘crying’ claims– live

Former US president Donald Trump has arrived in Manhattan for a deposition before New York’s attorney general Letitia James, he said on Thursday in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

The embattled 45th president returned to the city just a week after he was arraigned in a Manhattan court on a 34-count indictment in a separate criminal case from district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Ms James has brought a $250m business fraud lawsuit against him and the Trump Organization over alleged wrongdoing, including misleading banks and others that inflated the value of golf courses and hotels that bear his name.

The lawsuit alleges a breach of his attorney-client relationship and unjust enrichment, among other claims. It was filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Wednesday.

The former president appears to finally be making an effort to seek revenge against his ex-”fixer”, who would go on to tell Congress that his former employer was a racist and a con man after leaving his position.

Melania Trump has fired back at “assumptions” being made in the media after her absence from her husband’s arrest and post-arraignment speech hit headlines across the globe.

The former first lady released a statement through her office on Tuesday morning hitting out at the use of “unnamed sources” in reports about her “personal, professional, and political” viewpoints and urging readers to “exercise caution and good judgment”.

Former president Donald Trump vowed to stay in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and the 2024 general election despite his mounting legal troubles, even if it means he’ll be locked up in a jail cell by the time his name appears on a ballot.

Mr Trump made the defiant pronouncement during a fawning Tuesday evening interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the twice-impeached ex-president’s first sit-down with a media outlet since he was arraigned on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his former home state of New York.

Donald Trump’s claim that New York court staff were ‘crying’ when he was arrested and arraigned are “absolute BS”, a law enforcement official told Yahoo!News.

The one-term president made the bizarre claim to Tucker Carlson in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night.

“They were incredible. When I went to the courthouse which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I’ll tell you people were crying,” he claimed.

“People that work there. Professionally work there that have no problems putting in murderers and they see everybody. It’s a tough, tough place and they were crying. They were actually crying. They said I’m sorry.”

Video footage from inside the courthouse in Manhattan last week actually showed court staff refusing to hold open a door for Mr Trump as he walked in to face a judge.

Now law enforcement sources have laughed off the claim, telling Yahoo!News it had “zero” accuracy.

“There were zero people crying. There were zero people saying ‘I’m sorry.’”

Things took a turn for the worse for Fox News’s legal team this week as Dominion Voting Systems’s $1.6bn lawsuit against the channel proceeds.

A judge reprimanded Fox’s lawyers and said that he was no longer confident that attorneys for the company were being “straightforward” with the court.

Find out more in The Independent:

Ahead of jury selection in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6bn defamation case against Fox News, the Delaware Supreme Court Judge on the case is planning to appoint a “special master” to help determine whether the news company withheld key information and evidence.

Judge Eric Davis said he was considering the appointment on Wednesday, CNN reports, days before the trial is due to start.

Sebastian Miño-Bucheli has the story:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has now received a second envelope addressed to him which contained a mysterious white powder, according to NBC News, as he continues his prosecution of Donald Trump over the Stormy Daniels matter.

Mr Bragg has been the target of heightened vitriol from Republicans, especially former President Donald Trump, as he continues his efforts to prosecute Mr Trump for falsifying business records.

Two Black Democrats who were ousted from the Tennessee state legislature last week led a parade through the streets of Memphis on Wednesday after being successfully reinstated to their positions.

State Reps Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were both expelled by Republicans in the statehouse last week for joining with gun control protesters for a demonstration in the building; now, their respective local government councils have voted overwhelmingly to return both men to their seats in the capital.

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges connected with $130,000 in hush money payments made to the adult movie actress.

Following his arrest and arraignment earlier this week, Ms Daniels told Morgan about the evening she alleges she slept with Mr Trump following a golf event at Lake Tahoe.

Graeme Massie has the story.