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Jurors will hear closing arguments in the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday and receive the case by midweek, an unprecedented moment in U.S. history that could reshape the presidential campaign.
Prosecutors enter the home stretch with structural advantages over Mr. Trump, the first former president to face criminal charges and this year’s presumptive GOP nominee.
The jury is drawn from Manhattan, a liberal stronghold, and the panel has wide latitude in determining what kind of “unlawful means” Mr. Trump may have used to promote his 2016 election through an alleged scheme to hide hush payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Both sides will deliver closing arguments on Tuesday.
Unlike opening statements, the defense will go first and the prosecution, which has the burden of proof, will go last.
State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan told jurors the summations should take at least a day, if not longer. He will take an hour on Wednesday to instruct the jury on the law before they head into the deliberations room.
SEE ALSO: Legal experts tell how Judge Merchan has helped New York prosecutors in Trump’s trial
Mr. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, an offense that is punishable by up to four years in prison under New York law.
The verdict, which must be unanimous, could redirect the presidential contest. Mr. Trump is leading or virtually tied with President Biden in many pre-election polls, but a conviction could turn off independent voters.
Mr. Trump will look for a political advantage no matter what happens. He’ll point to an acquittal as proof he was unfairly targeted, or use a conviction to galvanize his base against Democratic forces — including, he says, President Biden — who’ve brought a bevy of prosecutions against him in a campaign year.
The case hinges on the credibility of Mr. Trump’s “fixer.”
Prosecutors are trying to convince jurors that Mr. Trump used his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay hush money to Ms. Daniels near the 2016 election and criminally concealed the payments with a string of reimbursement checks to Mr. Cohen that were logged as payments for legal services.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team spent days laying a foundation for the allegation. They started with David Pecker, a former tabloid executive who said he met with Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump in August 2015 and agreed to publish flattering stories about Mr. Trump while serving as the “eyes and ears” for negative stories, especially from women.
SEE ALSO: Trump refutes hush money allegations, says ‘Everything was done right’
He outlined a series of efforts to “catch and kill” stories from a Trump Tower doorman and a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who claimed to have an affair with Mr. Trump. But Mr. Pecker refused to pay Ms. Daniels, who claimed she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in 2006.
Former Trump aides, including Hope Hicks, testified there was an air of panic in the fall of 2016 after the release of “Access Hollywood” audio in which Mr. Trump boasted crudely about touching women. Ms. Daniels was pushing her tale around the same time, resulting in a $130,000 payment from Mr. Cohen through a made-up LLC he set up with a bank.
Mr. Cohen said he used a home equity line of credit instead of personal funds to pay Ms. Daniels.
A pivotal phone call
Mr. Cohen insists that Mr. Trump signed off on the Daniels payment in a phone call on the cusp of the 2016 election. Yet defense lawyer Todd Blanche scored major points with evidence that the call was placed to Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller to talk about a prank caller, not the Daniels matter.
“In light of everything that was going on, I believe I also spoke to Mr. President Trump and told him everything regarding the Stormy Daniels matter, [that it] was being worked on and it’s going to be resolved,” Mr. Cohen said.
“We’re not asking for your belief,” Mr. Blanche shot back.
The exchange was a triumphant moment for Mr. Trump’s lawyers and might influence the verdict. Their decision largely hinges on whether they believe Mr. Cohen or not.
Yet jurors are also looking at the series of checks and invoices that form the backbone of the alleged conspiracy to cover up the Daniels payment.
Jurors heard from former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, who testified about efforts to reimburse Mr. Cohen in 2017 through a series of checks.
Besides the Daniels payment, the money allegedly included money for tech company Red Finch, a full bonus for Mr. Cohen and a “grossing up” to help Mr. Cohen avoid a heavy hit on taxes.
Mr. Cohen said he pocketed $30,000 of the $50,000 earmarked for Red Finch, damaging his credibility.
Mr. Trump says he thought the overall payments were for legal fees to Mr. Cohen and logged as such. He signed the checks while he was busy running the country in 2017.
“There is no crime. So maybe they’ll try to devise one right now,” Mr. Trump said on the final day of testimony.
What’s the “other crime?”
Prosecutors charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records, a felony under New York law when the intent to defraud “includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
Mr. Bragg believes there was intent to commit violations of election laws, given the use of money to suppress unflattering stories near the 2016 election, and potentially of tax laws, given the grossing-up of Mr. Cohen’s reimbursements.
Prosecutors say the jury must find an intent to conceal another crime, but do not have to find that other crime fully occurred. And, they say, jurors don’t have to be unanimous about the unlawful means that Mr. Trump might have used to boost his election chances in 2016.
“The prosecution will need to indicate or suggest what that offense is, but the prosecution does not need the jurors to be unanimous in terms of what that unlawful means were,” said David Schultz, a Hamline University professor tracking the Trump cases. “The prosecution has the advantage in terms of the law supports what it wants in terms of jury instructions in a case like this. Of course, it still has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Mr. Trump’s lawyers pleaded with the court to require more specificity. But the judge agreed with prosecutor Matthew Colangelo that there is “no reason to rewrite the law for this case.”
A little help from his friends
Mr. Trump didn’t take the witness stand but still did plenty of talking during the case. A camera in the courthouse hallway served as his campaign stage, where he opined on current events and unloaded on Mr. Biden and Judge Merchan.
A gag order prevents him from commenting on jurors and witnesses, though his Republican allies weren’t constrained and showed up often to show their loyalty.
“The only thing more depressing than the environment of that courtroom is what’s actually happening in there. It’s straight out of a Kafka novel,” former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said.
Missing persons
Several key characters in the prosecution’s narrative never took the stand — omissions that could confuse the jury.
Dylan Howard, a former editor at the National Enquirer, was mentioned frequently in testimony about efforts to capture unflattering stories about Mr. Trump. He has a spinal condition and was unable to travel from Australia.
Other witnesses had firsthand knowledge of key episodes in the case, yet weren’t called by the prosecution.
Mr. Schiller, the former Trump bodyguard, did not testify about the pivotal phone call Mr. Cohen says he had with Mr. Trump.
Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, came up repeatedly and seemed to have intimate knowledge of the payments to Mr. Cohen, yet wasn’t called.
He is in jail for perjury and is viewed as deeply loyal to Mr. Trump, so he might not have helped the prosecution. The jury must decide if his absence damages the state’s case.
The deciders
The jury consists of seven men and five women, plus six alternates who sat for testimony but will only deliberate if one of the main jurors cannot continue for some reason.
The jurors come from all parts of Manhattan, a borough that is very liberal but also a global business center. Jurors’ media consumption seemed to reflect that, with many reporting they listened to National Public Radio and read The Wall Street Journal.
Some of them are transplants to New York or born in other countries, and they come from a range of occupations, including legal work, sales, technology and teaching.
They have one thing in common: Their decision could impact who is president next year.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Mr. Trump in 2017, told NewsNation that he doesn’t see the former president walking away unscathed.
“There’s an overwhelming chance of a conviction,” he said, “a significant but much smaller chance of a hung jury and zero chance of an acquittal.”
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