How Trump Prosecutors Used C-SPAN to Inform Jurors of Sex Assault Claims

Prosecutors on Tuesday called a seemingly low-profile witness to testify in the Donald J. Trump hush-money trial: Robert Browning, executive director of archives at C-SPAN, the public television network that broadcasts government proceedings. But Mr. Browning ended up playing an important role.

Mr. Browning spent about 20 minutes on the stand, and prosecutors began with a straightforward question: What is C-SPAN? Then they played a series of key clips from the network, starting with a Trump campaign rally in October 2016 at which the candidate attacked two women who had accused him of sexual assault.

The decision by prosecutors to introduce the videos through Mr. Browning’s testimony was a way to contend with a ruling that the judge, Juan M. Merchan, had made at the trial’s start. The judge stopped the prosecution from presenting direct evidence about the many women who had accused Mr. Trump of assault as the 2016 campaign neared its end.

But Justice Merchan allowed prosecutors to give a taste of that evidence to the jury in a different way: by playing the videos of Mr. Trump’s reactions to the allegations by the women.

When the judge agreed to admit the videos two weeks ago, he said they showed how Mr. Trump was “agitated by these allegations.” And that emotional state, he suggested, was fair game for the jury to hear about.

The videos appeared to be a way for the prosecution to start building its case that the Trump campaign had become increasingly concerned about its potential vulnerabilities with female voters.

That will be important as prosecutors turn to telling their story about how Mr. Trump wanted to silence a tale of sexual scandal that the porn star Stormy Daniels was shopping around, out of a fear that it could further alienate women.