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Former President Donald Trump is making a last-ditch plea for the criminal charges against him to be thrown out as his fate in a New York trial nears jury deliberations.
Mr. Trump did not testify in his defense at the hush money trial in Manhattan but has defended his actions on social media. Writing on Truth Social, he said payments to his lawyer, Michael Cohen, were legitimate and not part of a criminal scheme.
“The whole Case should be ENDED IMMEDIATELY, and all the charges THROWN OUT, because everything was done right, with Legal Expenses being reported as Legal Expenses!” he wrote Friday.
Prosecutors allege Mr. Trump used Mr. Cohen to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels near the 2016 election because she was shopping around a story about an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in Lake Tahoe in 2006.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team say Mr. Trump took criminal steps to conceal the payments by falsifying invoices and issuing checks to Mr. Cohen that were logged as other expenses.
Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. The charges are felony counts because prosecutors allege records were falsified to conceal a secondary “object crime,” in this case a scheme to violate election or tax laws.
Mr. Trump’s defense team said jurors should be required to make “very specific” findings but prosecutors said the law doesn’t require jurors to all agree on what “unlawful means” Mr. Trump deployed to cover up another offense.
State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan was reluctant to include more specific language in jury instructions, saying it would change the statute.
Mr. Trump says the situation is unfair.
“This Judge, whose conflicts are completely disqualifying, isn’t even requiring a unanimous decision by the jury on key portions of this Criminal Hoax, which is UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND UNAMERICAN,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Defense lawyers will give closing arguments Tuesday before prosecutors deliver their summation. The case will go to the jury by Wednesday.
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