New York prosecutors and Donald Trump’s lawyers make their closing arguments at his hush money trial on Tuesday in a final bid to influence the 12 jurors who decide whether he will become the first U.S. president past or present convicted of a crime.
After a six-week trial, prosecutors will argue on Tuesday that Trump, 77, illegally falsified business documents to cover up evidence of a payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s defence team will try to convince jurors he is not guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard required by U.S. law. Trump denies Daniels’s allegation of a sexual encounter in 2006, when he was married to his current wife, Melania Trump.
The defence will try to raise doubts about the credibility of prosecution witnesses, most notably Michael Cohen, who testified that as Trump’s fixer he handled the payment to Daniels and that Trump approved the cover-up.
During cross-examination, Trump’s lawyers got Cohen to discuss his felony convictions and imprisonment — some of which were unrelated to his former boss — as well as his history of lying and his lingering animosity for Trump. Cohen also admitted to stealing from Trump’s company.
Trump’s legal team called two witnesses of their own, and the former president himself did not testify.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, normally a misdemeanour under New York law.
Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office elevated those charges to felonies, saying Trump falsified those records to disguise what amounted to an illegal campaign contribution: the payment that bought Daniels’s silence at a time when Trump was already facing multiple accusations of sexual misconduct.
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Trump’s lawyers have implied that the $130,000 US payment for Daniels’s silence was intended to spare his family from embarrassment, not to protect his White House bid.
Other 3 criminal indictments proceeding slowly
If found guilty, Trump faces up to four years in prison, although imprisonment is unlikely for a first-time felon convicted of such a crime.
A conviction will not prevent Trump from trying to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden as the Republican candidate in the Nov. 5 election, and it would not prevent him from taking office if he won.
Opinion polls show a guilty verdict could pose danger for Trump in a tight race. One in four Republicans said they would not vote for Trump if he is found guilty in a criminal trial, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered voters in April. In the same survey, 60 per cent of independents said they would not vote for Trump if he is convicted of a crime.
Donald Trump’s defence team at the former president’s hush-money trial accused star prosecution witness Michael Cohen of lying on the stand regarding a phone call Cohen says he had with Trump about Stormy Daniels.
A guilty verdict would also divert more financial resources to legal bills, as he would be expected to launch an appeal.
Once the trial ends, Trump will also be free of a gag order imposed by Judge Juan M. Merchan, meaning he could continue to lash out at the judge and other perceived enemies.
Trump faces three other criminal prosecutions as well, but none is likely to go to trial before the election as they each have been beset with delays and outstanding legal questions.
Separate cases in Washington and Georgia accuse him of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, while another case in Florida charges him with mishandling classified information after he left office in 2021.
Source Agencies
