The New York trial of Donald Trump, the first U.S. president to ever face criminal charges, is fast nearing its end.

On Monday, Michael Cohen, Trump's one-time political fixer and the prosecution’s key witness against him, returns to the witness stand to face more questions from a defense lawyer and then another round of questioning from a prosecutor.

On Thursday, the last day the trial was in session, Cohen conceded that in years past he has been a serial liar, telling a 12-member jury that sometimes he told lies to help Trump and other times to protect his family.

Under a withering series of questions, Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche sought to portray Cohen as someone who cannot be believed, that essentially, he is dishonest, deceptive and shady.

The case centers on a $130,000 hush money payment Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels just ahead of Trump’s successful 2016 run for the presidency to hide her claim that she had a one-night tryst with Trump a decade earlier, to keep the information from voters as they were headed to the polls eight years ago.

Evidence in the trial shows that Trump repaid the money to Cohen in 2017 after he became president, with Trump accused of falsifying his business records to claim that the repayment to Cohen was for his legal work.

Cohen testified for the prosecution that repayment was for the hush money he paid Daniels, not legal work, and that Trump twice approved the scheme, including once at his Trump Tower in New York and a second time in the Oval Office at the White House after he became president.

Trump has denied Daniels’ claim he had a liaison with her and the entirety of the criminal charges.

Cohen is the last of 19 prosecution witnesses against Trump, who served a single term as the U.S. chief executive from 2017 to 2021 and now is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate in the November election against President Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020.

As the prosecution’s case ends, Trump’s defense team will almost certainly ask New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to dismiss the 34-count indictment against Trump, a request that is rarely granted in U.S. criminal trials.

If indeed Merchan refuses to throw out the case against Trump, his defense could call its own witnesses on his behalf but has given no certain indication that it will. Trump has said he wants to testify in his own defense, but defendants are not required to and U.S. legal analysts say it is unlikely because defendants often hurt themselves with their testimony rather than help.

If Trump were to testify, Merchan has already ruled that prosecutors will be allowed to ask him about two civil cases he lost in the last few months and was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. One involved business fraud at his Trump Organization real estate conglomerate and the other his defamation of a New York writer who had won a sexual assault decision against him.

Assuming Trump does not take the witness stand and his defense lawyers present only a witness or two or none, Merchan has told lawyers in the case that closing arguments could start May 28, after next Monday’s Memorial Day holiday in the U.S.