Good morning everybody! This is the first day of what could be a significant week. And we have a ruling on Friday’s Sandoval hearing already.

Merchan granted questioning about the following:

*The New York Attorney General verdict that Trump misstated the value of his assets for economic benefit
*That he violated a court order in attacking Judge Engoron’s clerk during that case
*That he was found to have defamed E. Jean Carroll
*That he was found another time to have defamed E. Jean Carroll
*That he stipulated to the dissolution of the Trump foundation in another NYAG case

This is from the New York Times:

Here is the prosecutor’s original request. One of the items left out is the finding that Trump did in fact “secually abuse” (i,e., rape) E. Jean Carroll.

I’m reading in Newsweek that “Prosecutors cannot ask the former president about the Trump Organization’s tax fraud conviction in 2022 nor the frivolous lawsuit against Hillary Clinton in Florida.”

It remains to be seen if Trump will insist on testifying anyway. Only a moron would testify under these circumstances, but, well, Trump IS a moron, so … Maggie Haberman wrote in the NY Times live feed,

It was always clear that Trump was going to be told to wait to see the outcome of the Sandoval hearing before deciding whether to testify. Recall that he wanted to testify in his trial in the first E. Jean Carroll case, and several advisers and lawyers told him not to. He decided that had he only done so, he would have avoided the liability in that case.

And I’m sure he’s wrong. By all accounts it was his own bad behavior in court that helped put the jury on E. Jean Carroll’s side, and apparently he remains oblivious to that.

The judge is now instructing the jury. I’ll post more stuff today if and when anything significant happens.

Update: Joyce Vance’s assessment.