AG Brenna Bird travels to New York, joins Trump for hush money trial appearance

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, second from left, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Eric Trump, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Sen. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., listen as former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a break in his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 13, 2024, in New York City. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. (Photo by Seth Wenig-Pool/Getty Images)

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird joined Donald Trump in New York on Monday as the former president’s criminal trial continued.

Bird was not the only GOP politician in Trump’s courthouse entourage. U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, as well as U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-New York, joined the former president for the 16th day of the trial. Trump faces 34 felony counts in the case, having been accused of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who testified last week that she received a $130,000 payment during the 2016 election season for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter.

Michael Cohen, a former attorney for Trump and vice president at the Trump Organization, testified Monday, telling the jury about multiple instances when the former president assigned him duties related to covering up affairs or sexual encounters. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the lawsuit.

In a news conference staged outside the courthouse, Bird denounced the prosecution of Trump.

“My background is as a prosecutor, and what I saw in that courtroom today is a travesty,” Bird said. “Politics has no place in a court of law. Politics should be out on the campaign trail. But instead, because of these charges that are a sham and a scam, he — our president, Trump — is tied up in court when he should be out on the campaign trail.”

The Republican attorney general said she is worried about “the future of our country if this is the direction that campaigns are going to take,” alleging that President Joe Biden is using the judicial system to influence the 2024 presidential election. Trump also faces criminal charges in cases related to allegedly removing classified documents from the White House, as well as in Georgia for allegedly attempting to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. He is also involved in multiple civil lawsuits, including one case, now on appeal, where he was ordered to pay $355 million for misrepresenting his wealth.

Bird said in a statement that it is clear that “Biden and his far-left allies will stop at nothing to silence President Trump’s voice and keep him off the campaign trail by keeping him tied up in court … It is wrong, it is election interference, and our country deserves better.”

Bird has been a longtime, vocal supporter of the former president. She endorsed Trump in the 2024 Iowa Republican caucuses, which the former president won, in October 2023. The attorney general said her trip to New York in support of the president was intended to demonstrate Iowa’s support for Trump in the November election.

Iowa Democrats criticized Bird’s trip, questioning whether she had spent taxpayer funds for the travel to New York.

“Iowans deserve to know whether their hard-earned money is going to a political photo op 1,100 miles from the State Capitol,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said in a news release. “Even more so, Iowans deserve an attorney general that’s focused on serving her constituents – not her political ambitions.”

A spokesperson for Bird’s office told the Des Moines Register that taxpayer money was not used to fund the trip.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Cohen was a U.S. attorney general. The story has been updated to fix this error.

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