Key takeaways from Trump's hush money trial closing arguments
Donald Trump’s legal professionals and Manhattan prosecutors made their last pitches Tuesday to jurors who will resolve whether or not the Republican would be the first former U.S. president convicted of against the law, squaring off over the power of the proof and credibility of the prosecution’s star witness as his hush cash trial drew towards a detailed.
After listening to greater than 4 weeks of testimony, the panel of New Yorkers sat attentively by a marathon of closing arguments — nearly three hours from the protection and roughly 5 from the prosecution — that stretched from morning till supper time.
The jury may start deliberating as early as Wednesday to resolve if Trump is responsible of falsifying business information to cowl up hush cash funds throughout the 2016 presidential marketing campaign to a porn actor who claimed she had intercourse with him. Trump says Stormy Daniels’ story is a lie and that he’s harmless of the costs. The decide is predicted to provide jurors directions on Wednesday earlier than they start deliberating.
Here are some takeaways from closing arguments:
ALL ABOUT MICHAEL COHEN
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche had a transparent message for jurors: The prosecution’s case rests on the testimony of Trump fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen, and he can’t be believed. Cohen is an important witness as a result of he made the $130,000 hush cash fee to Daniels and the reimbursements to Cohen are what prosecutors say had been falsely logged as authorized bills.
As the protection has carried out all through the case, Blanche attacked Cohen as a liar with a private vendetta in opposition to his former boss. While Blanche tried to chip away at Cohen’s credibility, the protection confirmed jurors a PowerPoint slide that learn: “Case Turns on Cohen.”
Blanche repeatedly reminded jurors of Cohen’s previous lies, together with his 2018 responsible plea for mendacity to Congress. And the protection performed for jurors clips of Cohen’s podcast wherein the now-disbarred lawyer stated seeing the previous president booked on prison expenses “fills me with delight.”
The case in opposition to Trump is constructed round testimony from “a witness that outright hates the defendant, wants him in jail, is actively making money off that hatred,” Blanche stated.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass acknowledged that Cohen is a difficult witness. But prosecutors didn’t select him, Trump did, Steinglass stated.
“The defendant chose Michael Cohen to be his fixer because he was willing to lie and cheat on the defendant’s behalf,” Steinglass stated. Furthermore, he stated, there’s “a mountain” of proof and corroborating testimony connecting Trump to the crime.
“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 whether he has useful, reliable information to give you about what went down in this case, and the truth is that he was in the best position to know,” the prosecutor stated.
‘A CONSPIRACY AND A COVER-UP’
The prosecutor used his closing argument to convey jurors again to what District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s workplace alleges is the crux of the case: a scheme to illegally affect the 2016 election by protecting Daniels’ story from surfacing. The case “at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up,” Steinglass stated.
The objective of the hassle, Steinglass argued, was “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion.” It’s unattainable to know whether or not Trump’s effort to “hoodwink voters” made a distinction within the 2016 election, Steinglass stated, however that’s not one thing prosecutors must show.
Steinglass pushed again in opposition to the protection’s competition that the previous president was making an attempt to guard his fame and household — not his marketing campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing tales about his private life. It’s “no coincidence” that Daniel’s alleged sexual encounter with Trump occurred in 2006 however she wasn’t paid for her silence till proper earlier than the 2016 election, Steinglass stated.
The protection, in the meantime, informed jurors that “every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people who are working together to help somebody win.” Trump’s alleged efforts to suppress detrimental tales had been no totally different, Blanche stated.
“The government wants you to believe that President Trump did these things with his records to conceal efforts to promote his successful candidacy in 2016, the year before,” Blanche stated. “Even if you find that is true, that is not enough…it doesn’t matter if there’s a conspiracy to win an election.”
CAMPAIGN COMES TO THE COURTHOUSE
Outside the courthouse, there have been dueling press conferences from the Trump and Biden campaigns, which sought to capitalize on the gathering of reporters and cameras to assault their respective opponents and rating political factors.
While the protection was delivering its closing argument, the Biden marketing campaign deployed exterior the courthouse actor Robert De Niro and a pair of law enforcement officials who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It was a pointy about-face for Biden’s crew, which had largely ignored the trial because it started six weeks in the past.
De Niro and the officers didn’t reference Trump’s prison case immediately, however slammed the previous president as a menace to the nation. De Niro informed reporters that if Trump returns to the White House, Americans can “kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted.”
Trump’s marketing campaign staffers adopted with their very own news convention on the similar spot. Jason Miller, Trump’s senior marketing campaign adviser, informed reporters the Biden marketing campaign’s press occasion exhibits that the trial is political.
“After months of saying politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made a campaign event out of a lower Manhattan trial day for President Trump,” Miller stated. Karoline Leavitt, the marketing campaign press secretary, stated the occasion was “a full blown concession that this trial is a witch hunt that comes from the top.”
POLITICIZED LANGUAGE
The protection repeatedly referred to the prosecution as “the government.” The prosecution invoked the phrase “big lie.” Closing arguments on each side had been peppered with phrases and phrases which have develop into politicized.
Blanche referred to as the prosecution “the government” — a time period usually used for federal prosecutors, not the state-level crew making an attempt Trump’s case. In New York, state prosecutors are usually referred to in court docket as “the people,” brief for “the people of the State of New York.”
Trump’s two important attorneys are former federal prosecutors who’re used to arguing in federal courtrooms. But Trump has additionally been making an attempt to forged the case — and the separate federal circumstances introduced by Justice Department particular counsel Jack Smith — as a politically motivated effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to tank Trump’s marketing campaign.
The hush cash case was filed by native prosecutors in Manhattan who don’t work for the Justice Department, and the Justice Department has stated the White House has had no involvement within the two Trump circumstances introduced by Smith.
But by referring to the prosecution because the “government,” the protection is evoking photographs of the “deep state” conspiracies that Trump claims are geared toward placing him behind bars and stopping him from retaking the White House.
Steinglass, in his closing argument, used the phrase “big lie” to explain the protection’s characterization of telephone and textual content message information between Cohen and Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller. Democrats have used that phrase to explain Trump’s false claims that he received the 2020 election, which helped spur his supporters’ riot on the U.S. Capitol.
