Former President Trump Is About To Face His Reckoning
As the hush money trial was winding down, attorneys for Republican Donald Trump and prosecutors from Manhattan presented their closing arguments to the jury that would decide whether or not Trump would become the first former U.S. president to be found guilty of a crime. The attorneys clashed over the prosecutor’s star witness’s credibility and the strength of the evidence. The New York panel listened intently during final arguments that lasted from breakfast to dinnertime. If Trump is found guilty of using false company documents to conceal hush money payments made to a porn actor during his 2016 presidential campaign, who claimed to have had sex with him, the jury might start deliberations as soon as Wednesday. From Tuesday’s trial, here are five key points.
1. The Defense Has Urged the Jury Not To See the Case as a ‘Referendum’
Since the start of the case, the issue of how the jurors would keep their personal opinions on Trump apart from the evidence at hand has loomed large. One goal of the jury selection process was to exclude any prospective jurors with particularly biased opinions toward the former president. Blanche cautioned the jurors in his closing remarks against seeing the case as ‘a referendum on the ballot box — who you voted for in 2016 or 2020, who you plan on voting for in 2024.’ He added: “The verdict you have to reach has to do with the evidence you heard in this courtroom.”
2. Prosecution Making Efforts To Divert Attention Away From Cohen
To show that Michael Cohen may have informed Trump about the Stormy Daniels arrangement and lodged a complaint with Donald Trump’s bodyguard, Joshua Steinglass tried to recreate a contentious phone conversation. Steinglass attempted to discredit Michael Cohen’s defense theory that he is a former loyalist who has become resentful by assuring the jury that Cohen’s anger is understandable. As per Politico , when asked about the others implicated in the purported plot to illegally impact the 2016 election, Steinglass said, “To date, he’s the only one who paid the price.”
3. Trump Campaign Attacks Cohen’s Credibility
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, attacked Michael Cohen, the ex-personal attorney of the president, in his evidence. He gave the jury several grounds to distrust Cohen’s evidence and claimed that they were unsupported. As per CNN , Blanche told the jury they ‘should want and expect more’ after slamming the prosecution’s star witness, Cohen. He referred to Cohen as the “MVP of liars” and said that his statements on the stand had “not a shred of evidence,” implying that the jury cannot find Trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on his statements. He brought up the moment Cohen confessed to stealing from the Trump Organization and the contradictions in Cohen’s account of a conversation with Trump’s ex-bodyguard.
4. Robert de Niro Makes a Brief Appearance
Outside the courtroom where Trump’s illegal hush money trial was underway, Robert De Niro joined the Biden team for a news conference. The heroic deeds of retired police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn were being lauded by De Niro on January 6 when an onlooker yelled out, “Traitors.” The 80-year-old De Niro was the main attraction; he had previously warned that Trump would “never leave” if reelected in November and has painted the former president as a threat to America and the rest of the globe.
5. The ‘Access Hollywood’ Footage
Attorney Blanche aimed to minimize the significance of the Access Hollywood video. However, prosecutor Steinglass emphasized the importance of the recording to Trump’s 2016 campaign and criminal prosecution. As Steinglass told the jury, Trump wanted to ‘muzzle’ porn actress Stormy Daniels so that she wouldn’t testify that the recording was nothing more than ‘locker room talk,’ which ‘would have undermined his entire strategy.’ Steinglass played the jurors Trump’s recorded statements in which he apologized for and explained the recording, as well as excerpts from his defense of himself in the face of women’s accusations of sexual assault that surfaced after the tape went viral. As per Politico , he further explained, “You really can’t understand this case without appreciating the climate that was taking place in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape.It caused pandemonium in the Trump campaign, and at the time, many in the Trump campaign … believed the fallout from the Access Hollywood tape could tip the election.”