On Tuesday, attorneys for both sides will prepare to present their arguments in what may be the deciding moment in Donald Trump’s first criminal trial. The verdict could have far-reaching consequences.
A trial that began almost a month ago has now reached its peak with the summations. On Tuesday, they will likely continue throughout the day and maybe into Wednesday. Jurors will be instructed on the law by Judge Juan Merchan, and the nation will wait in anticipation to see if Trump will be convicted of a crime for allegedly forging financial documents to conceal a hush money payment to an adult film star in 2016. Trump would make history if convicted.
This issue has become deeply connected to Trump’s campaign for president, so any decision in it will have consequences well beyond the confines of the courts and his private life. Given that this is anticipated to be the sole one of four outstanding criminal trials to proceed to a jury trial before to the November election, the stakes could not be higher. In a social media post commemorating Memorial Day, the former president seemed enraged as he unleashed his fury on opponents he referred to as “Human Scum” on the eve of his return to the courtroom.
In an effort to protect their client from the shame of a conviction, Trump’s legal team is attempting to keep him out of jail. According to AWN’s Kara Scannell, the lead attorney for the ex-president, Todd Blanche, is expected to question why prosecutors did not summon other important individuals in the ex-president’s personal and business circles, as well as to focus on the credibility of Michael Cohen, who went through aggressive cross-examination and was once Trump’s fixer-turned-nemesis.
Following Blanche, the prosecution’s closing argumentator Joshua Steinglass will spend the better part of an hour guiding the jury through the thirty-four papers that Cohen claims to have faked in order to support his evidence, as well as other witnesses’ testimony including text messages and phone records. In the end, the team representing Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will attempt to persuade the seven male and five female jurors that Trump plotted to conceal embarrassing facts from voters, a case of early election meddling.
A not guilty plea from Trump indicates that he denies having an affair with Stormy Daniels. His defense team just needs one juror to disagree with the other nine who have already decided he is guilty in order to secure a conviction; they are not obliged to persuade the entire jury of his innocence. Their performance in the trial, with just two witnesses presented in a concise defense, suggests that they will contend that the state of New York has not established conclusively that the ex-president was involved in an illegal scheme, which, according to them, does not constitute a violation of the law. Throughout the trial, they maintained that the prosecution failed to prove any criminal intent. Even though Cohen admitted lying on the stand, his attorneys would try to paint a damning picture of him as the one who was financially profiting from a media empire that targeted his ex-boss.
Any result that does not result in a conviction could assist Trump’s political goals, at least for the time being. This is in contrast to a hung jury, which could lead the judge to declare a mistrial and give prosecutors a chance to prosecute Trump again.
I am uncertain as to whether the general electorate perceives a significant distinction between the two. The defendant and many others are mainly concerned with the fact that he has a criminal record, according to Elliot Williams, a legal analyst for AWN. “So, I would think the defense is essentially trying to convince that one juror to have doubts about the case and be unwilling to back down, you know?”
The spotlight will once again be on Cohen.
At one point earlier this month, Blanche said that the case ought not to proceed to trial because Cohen’s credibility as a witness was so compromised. “He testified,” he informed the judge. He also lied while sworn. The courtroom is here. If the jury buys into that falsehood, the result could be a conviction.
At the closing arguments stage of a case, attorneys restate the key points of weeks of intricate testimony and courtroom drama in order to lay the groundwork for the jury’s consideration of the evidence during their deliberations. The gravity of the situation, the fact that a person’s honor and even freedom are at risk, and the significance of maintaining the rule of law are all conveyed to the jury through these tools.
At issue here is a complicated legal equation, which the jury will have to solve. They must concur that the state prosecutors in New York have established beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed the minor offense of falsifying company records in order to find him guilty. The jury must next decide that Trump did this in furtherance of another crime, namely one involving the 2016 election, in order to find him guilty of a felony.
The prosecution will most likely contend that despite the defense’s tough treatment of Cohen, he was truthful regarding the case’s essential aspects and that weeks of evidence had previously supported his testimony.
According to “AWN This Morning” host Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor, the jury’s overall impression of Cohen did not matter. You are under no obligation to like Michael Cohen, regardless of whether you think he would be a good fit for your sister or family. Do not mistake this for a popularity contest. At that very moment, was he being truthful? Could you trust him?
Since the man who identified himself as Trump’s former “thug” went to prison for offenses including lying to Congress, the attacks on Cohen’s character were inevitable. The prosecution used days of evidence to construct a legal edifice, brick by brick.
“During the course of the case, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo presented evidence of a conspiracy in the form of emails, bank records, contemporaneous phone calls, text messages, and other documents that corroborated the testimony of the witnesses,” Colangelo stated.
In order to show the jury why Trump could have wished to hide his alleged romance with Daniels, the purpose of that evidence was to build a plot that highlighted it in graphic detail. They managed to get testimony from ex-tabloid publisher David Pecker, who testified about Trump’s history of censoring embarrassing stories, and they gathered evidence from ex-Trump associates, such as Hope Hicks, who worked in communications for the president, to disprove the idea that Trump was trying to shield his family from the scandal and instead was concerned that voters would have a negative impression of him in 2016.
Moreover, the prosecution has laid the groundwork for a case that would lead to the conclusion that Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 under the ex-president’s orders and that Trump, while in office, cooked the books to cover up payments to his former fixer.
