Monday’s opening statements in the first criminal trial of a former US president provided a clear road map for how prosecutors will try to prove Donald Trump broke the law, and how the defense plans to fight the accusations on several fronts.
Lawyers presented dueling accounts as jurors got first glimpse of prosecution accusing Trump of falsifying business records as part of a plan to suppress negative stories about him during his campaign presidential election of 2016.
There will be weeks to come of likely dramatic and embarrassing testimony about the personal life of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, as he simultaneously campaigns for his return to the White House in November.
Here’s a look at some key takeaways from opening statements:
Electoral fraud against “accounting” affair
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying the Trump Organization’s internal business records. But prosecutors made it clear they didn’t want jurors to view this as a routine case on paper. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the heart of the case was a scheme to “corrupt” the 2016 election by silencing people who were about to tell embarrassing stories that Trump feared would harm his campaign.
“No politician wants bad press,” Colangelo said. “But the evidence at trial will show that this was not a manipulation or communications strategy. This was a long-planned, planned plot to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump to get elected illegal spending to silence people who had something negative to say about his behavior He added: “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
The business records charges stem from items such as invoices and checks that were considered legal fees in the Trump Organization’s filings when prosecutors said they were actually reimbursements to the former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen over a secret $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels. Daniels threatened to go public with her claim that she had an extramarital sexual relationship with Trump. He says that never happened.
The prosecutors’ characterizations appear intended to counter suggestions by some experts that the case — perhaps the only one that will go to trial before the November election — is not as serious as the three other prosecutions he faces. The cases accuse Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden and illegally retaining classified documents after leaving the White House.
Trump, meanwhile, sought to downplay the accusations as he left the courtroom Monday, calling the whole thing a “bookkeeping” matter and a “very minor thing.” But he also declared that it was about elections – the one last November. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the affair was part of a broader Democratic effort to damage his chances of winning the presidency again.
Trump’s defense appears
Trump’s lawyer used his opening statement to attack the case as baseless, saying the former president did nothing illegal.
The attorney, Todd Blanche, disputed prosecutors’ assertion that Trump agreed to pay Daniels to help with his campaign, saying Trump was trying to “protect his family, his reputation and his brand.”
Blanche said the defense would argue that, after all, the whole purpose of a presidential campaign is to try to influence an election.
“It’s called democracy,” Blanche told jurors. “They put something sinister on this idea, like it’s a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”
Blanche also presented the ledger entries at issue in the case as pro forma actions made by an employee of the Trump Organization. Trump “had nothing to do with” the alleged false business records, “except that he signed the checks, at the White House, while he was running the country,” Blanche said. And he argued that references to legal fees in the filings were not false, since Cohen was Trump’s personal attorney at the time.
Prosecutors want to put Trump at the center
All 34 counts in the indictment relate to the payment to Daniels. But prosecutors plan to present evidence of a payment to another woman — former Playboy model Karen McDougal — who claimed a sexual relationship with Trump, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a history according to which Trump had a child out of wedlock. Trump says they were all lies.
Prosecutors said they would show that Trump was at the center of the plan to silence the women, telling jurors they would hear Trump in his voice talking about the plan to pay off McDougal. Cohen arranged for the publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer to pay McDougal $150,000 but not publish the article in a practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
Colangelo told jurors that prosecutors would play them a recording that Cohen secretly made during a meeting with Trump weeks before the 2016 election. In the recording, first made public in 2018, Trump is heard saying : “What do we have to pay for this? One hour fifty?
Trump “desperately didn’t want this information about Karen McDougal made public because he was worried about its effect on the election,” Colangelo said.
This brings the case closer to opening statements.
Cohen’s credibility highlighted
The defense’s opening statement previewed what will be a key defense strategy: trying to discredit Cohen, a Trump loyalist turned critic and expected star witness for the prosecution. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the secret payments in 2018 and served prison time.
Let jurors believe that Cohen, who says he arranged the payments to the women at Trump’s direction, could make or break the case for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Trump’s lawyer highlighted Cohen’s criminal record, describing him as a serial liar who turned on Trump after he failed to get an administration job and found himself in legal trouble . Blanche said Cohen’s “entire financial livelihood depends on destroying President Trump,” noting that he hosts podcasts and has written books disparaging his ex-boss.
“He has one goal and one obsession: to get Trump,” Blanche said. “I submit to you that he cannot be trusted.”
Anticipating the defense’s attacks on Cohen, the prosecution promised to be frank about the “mistakes” made by Trump’s former lawyer. But Colangelo said “you can credit Michael Cohen’s testimony” despite his past.
“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is too damning,” the prosecutor said.
But first: David Pecker
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker is the first witness for prosecutors, who say Trump’s alleged scheme to hide potentially damaging information from voters began with a meeting at Trump Tower in 2015 between candidates from the time, Pecker and Cohen. Pecker took the witness stand Monday before the day broke and his testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.
At the meeting, Pecker – a longtime friend of Trump’s – agreed to help Trump’s campaign by publishing favorable articles about him, defaming his opponents, researching unflattering stories about him and reporting them. reporting to Cohen for “catch and kill” deals. These included claims by Daniels, McDougal and former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin, according to prosecutors. Trump says it was all fake.
Pecker will likely be questioned about any alleged efforts made by American Media Inc., then the owner of the Enquirer, on Trump’s behalf. Federal prosecutors agreed in 2018 not to prosecute American Media in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea, and the Federal Election Commission imposed a fine of $187,500 to the company, calling the McDougal deal a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.” »
Pecker’s brief intervention on the stand Monday mainly concerned his background and other basic facts, although he said the Enquirer practiced “checkbook journalism” – paying for stories – and that he had the final word on any story about a famous person.
Former President Donald Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to secret payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Here’s what you need to know.
“The accused” or “President Trump”?
The prosecutor referred to Trump during his opening statement as “the accused.” Trump’s lawyer took a different approach, calling him “President Trump.”
“We will call him President Trump, out of respect for the office he held,” Blanche said. At the same time, Trump’s lawyer sought to portray him as an ordinary man, describing him as a husband, father and fellow New Yorker.
“He is, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do: defend himself,” Blanche said.
Trump sat quietly while listening to opening statements, occasionally passing notes to his lawyers and whispering in their ears. But outside the courtroom, he has continued to attempt to politically capitalize on the case, which will force him to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail.
“That’s why they’re trying to get me off the trail. Checks are going out to a lawyer,” Trump said.
NBC Chicago
