CBS News
Trump trial sees investigator return to the stand as 3rd week nears close
A forensic analyst who works for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will resume testimony Friday in the trial of former President Donald Trump.
On Thursday, Douglas Daus introduced a recording of Michael Cohen speaking to Trump, which he said he located on Cohen’s phone.
“I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David,” said Cohen, referring to former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who helped suppress a model’s claim of an affair with Trump.
“So, what do we got to pay for this? 150?” Trump can be heard asking, describing the amount that Pecker’s publication paid the model, Karen McDougal.
Earlier in the day, McDougal’s former attorney Keith Davidson testified about that deal and another he negotiated from just before the presidential election: a $130,000 payment from Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Davidson and the jury heard another of Cohen’s recordings. In that October 2017 phone call, Cohen said, “I can’t even tell you how many times [Trump] said to me, you know, ‘I hate the fact that we did it,'” referring to the Daniels deal.
Cohen is expected to testify later in the trial. He is prosecutors’ central witness against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump denies committing the crimes and says he did not have sex with Daniels or McDougal.
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CBS News
Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for FBI director, targeted in possible Iran-backed cyberattack, sources say
Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, was recently notified that he was the target of a potential Iran-backed cyberattack, two people familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News.
The apparent hackers targeted his communications, but whether they succeeded and how much access they had to the data is still being investigated, the people said.
The FBI declined to comment. CBS News had also reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
The news of Iran’s potential targeting of Patel was first reported by Semafor.
This comes after months of warnings from the FBI and other federal agencies of Iranian cyber activity targeting Trump campaign staff leading up the 2024 presidential election. In September, Justice Department prosecutors charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with launching a broad hacking campaign against U.S. officials, including those close to Trump.
In August, Microsoft said that Iran was increasing its efforts to influence the November election, and in one case had targeted a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack.
Trump and his allies, including members of his first administration, have been targets of Iran since the 2020 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, and U.S. officials continued to warn of those cyberattack campaigns in recent months.
The 44-year-old Patel served in intelligence and defense roles in Trump’s first term, including chief of staff to the secretary of defense. He was also designated by Trump to be a representative to the National Archives and Records Administration and fought a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
He is an attorney and staunch Trump loyalist who rose to prominence as an aide to former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California, fighting the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
He served on Trump’s National Security Council, then as a senior adviser to acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, and later as chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
President-elect Donald Trump is considering selecting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as his pick for defense secretary to potentially replace embattled Fox News host Pete Hegseth, two sources familiar with the transition told CBS News Tuesday night.
This comes after Trump and DeSantis attended a memorial for fallen law enforcement officers Tuesday in Florida.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report this story.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
