Jurors in Donald Trump’s secret trial are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday after receiving instructions from the judge on the law and factors they can consider in their efforts to reach a verdict in the first criminal case against a former president American.
The deliberations follow a marathon day of arguments in which a Manhattan prosecutor accused Trump of trying to “deceive” voters in the 2016 presidential election by participating in a hush money scheme designed to hushing up embarrassing stories he feared would torpedo his campaign.
“This case, at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during hearings that ran from early afternoon into evening.
Trump’s lawyer, by contrast, called the prosecution’s star witness “the biggest liar of all time,” proclaiming his client innocent of all charges and pressuring the panel for a blanket acquittal.
The lawyers’ conflicting accounts, sharply divergent in their assessments of the witnesses’ credibility, Trump’s guilt and the strength of the evidence, offered both sides a final chance to score points with the jury as it prepares to embark on the momentous and historically unprecedented task of deciding whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee before the November election.
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It’s unclear whether prosecutors would seek prison time if convicted or whether the judge would impose that sentence.
Jurors will have the option to find Trump guilty on all counts, acquit him of all counts, or return a mixed verdict in which he is found guilty of some counts and not others. others. If they reach an impasse after several days of deliberations and cannot reach a unanimous verdict, Judge Juan M. Merchan can declare a mistrial.
The lawsuit contained allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to cover up potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign by paying hush money, including to a porn actor who claimed she and Trump had sex sexual relations a decade earlier. Her lawyer, Todd Blanche, told jurors that neither actor Stormy Daniels nor the Trump lawyer who paid her, Michael Cohen, could be trusted.
“President Trump is innocent. He committed no crime and the prosecutor did not meet the burden of proof, period,” Blanche said.
Steinglass sought to address jurors’ potential concerns about witness credibility. Trump, for example, said he and Daniels never had sex and attacked Cohen repeatedly as a liar.
The prosecutor acknowledged that Daniels’ account of the alleged 2006 encounter in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite, which Trump denied, was at times “worthy of the name,” but he said the details that she provided – including about the decor and what she said she saw when she searched. in Trump’s toiletry bag – were filled with “true ring” touchstones.
And, he said, the story is important because it “reinforces (Trump’s) incentive to buy his silence.”
“His story is complicated. It makes people uncomfortable to hear. This probably makes some of you uncomfortable to hear. But that’s kind of the problem,” Steinglass said. He told jurors: “Simply put, Stormy Daniels is the motive. »
The payoff came against the backdrop of the disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women without their permission. If Daniels’ story had come to light following the recording, it would have undermined his strategy. to twist his words, Steinglass said.
“It’s essential to appreciate that,” Steinglass said. At the same time he dismissed his remarks on the tape as “locker room talk,” Trump was “negotiating to muzzle a porn star,” the prosecutor said.
Blanche, who spoke first, sought to downplay the fallout by saying the “Access Hollywood” tape was not an “apocalyptic event.”
Steinglass also tried to reassure jurors that the prosecution’s case did not rest solely on Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal arranger who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in the secret payments, as well as lying to Congress. He went to prison and was disbarred, but his direct involvement in the transactions made him a key witness at trial.
“It’s not about whether you like Michael Cohen. It’s not about whether you want to go into business with Michael Cohen. It’s about whether he has any useful, reliable information to give you about what happened in this case, and the truth is he knew best,” Steinglass said.
Although the case included sometimes sordid discussions of sex industry and tabloid practices, the actual accusations concern something far less flashy: the reimbursements that Trump signed for Cohen for payments.
The reimbursements were recorded as legal fees, which prosecutors say was a fraudulent label intended to conceal the purpose of the secret transaction and illegally interfere in the 2016 election. Defense attorneys say Cohen has actually done substantial legal work for Trump and his family.
In her own hour-long speech to the jury, with sweeping denials echoing Trump’s “deny everything” approach, Blanche blasted the entire basis of the case.
He said Cohen, not Trump, created the invoices that were submitted to the Trump Organization for reimbursement and rejected the accusation’s caricature of a detail-oriented manager, suggesting instead that Trump was concerned about the presidency and not by the checks he signed. And he rejected the idea that the alleged hush money scheme amounted to election interference.
“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people working together to help someone win,” Blanche said.
As expected, he reserved his most heated attack for Cohen, with whom he tangled during a lengthy cross-examination.
Imitating the term “GOAT,” used primarily in sports as an acronym for “greatest of all time,” Blanche referred to Cohen as “GLOAT” — the greatest liar of all time — and also called Cohen “the ‘human embodiment of reasonable doubt’. This language was intentional because, to convict Trump, jurors must believe prosecutors have proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“He lied to you repeatedly. He lied many, many times before you even met him. His financial and personal well-being depends on this matter. He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true,” Blanche said, referring to Cohen’s incessant and often biting personal attacks on social media against Trump and the lucrative income he makes from his books and podcasts about Trump.
The trial was previously scheduled to begin on May 20.
Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.
NBC Chicago
