NEW YORK — Donald Trump is “innocent” and did not break the law, a lawyer for the former president told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday as the landmark hush money trial moved closer to its conclusion.
The arguments, expected to last the entire day, will give attorneys one last chance to address the Manhattan jury and to score final points with the panel before it starts deliberating the fate of the first former American president to be charged with felony crimes.
“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” said defense attorney Todd Blanche, who said the evidence in the case should “leave you wanting” and that the prosecution’s star witness told “lies” on the stand and cannot be trusted.
“The consequences of the lack of proof that you all heard over the past five weeks” are simple, Blanche said. “A not guilty verdict, period.”
After more than four weeks of testimony, the summations tee up a momentous and historically unprecedented task for the jury as it decides whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in connection with payments during the 2016 election to prevent a porn actor from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump.
Because prosecutors have the burden of proof in the case, they will deliver their arguments last.
“You can not convict President Trump, you can not convict President Trump of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt on the word of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said, adding that Cohen “told you a number of things that were lies, pure and simple.”
After closing arguments are given, the judge will instruct the jury, likely Wednesday, on the law governing the case and the factors the panel can take into account during deliberations. The deliberations will then proceed in secret, though some clues as to the jury’s thinking may arrive through any notes it sends to the judge with questions.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It’s unclear whether prosecutors would seek imprisonment in the event of a conviction, or if the judge would impose that punishment if asked.
The case centers on a $130,000 payment Cohen made to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 election to prevent her from going public with her story of a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump 10 years earlier in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite. Trump has denied Daniels’ account, and his attorney, during hours of questioning in the trial, accused her of making it up.
When Trump reimbursed Cohen, the payments were logged as being for legal services, which prosecutors say was designed to conceal the true purpose of the transaction with Daniels and to illegally interfere in the 2016 election, in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for actual legal services, and they say that his celebrity status, particularly during the campaign, made him a target for extortion.
Blanche, delivering a PowerPoint presentation to jurors, pointed to emails and testimony showing that Cohen did indeed work on some legal matters for Trump that year. While Cohen characterized that work as “very minimal,” Blanche argued otherwise.
“Cohen lied to you. Cohen lied to you,” Blanche said, his voice getting more emphatic
The nearly two dozen witnesses included Daniels, who described in sometimes vivid detail the encounter she says she had with Trump; David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, who testified that he used his media enterprise to protect Trump by squelching stories that could harm his campaign, including by paying $150,000 to a former Playboy model to keep her from going public with a claim that she had had a yearlong affair with Trump; and Cohen, who testified that Trump was intimately involved in the hush money discussions — “Just pay it,” the now-disbarred lawyer quoted Trump as saying.
