New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan read legal instructions to the jury of seven men and five women to guide their deliberations and then handed them the case to decide behind closed doors.
The jury, all New Yorkers chosen randomly from voter registration lists, heard five weeks of testimony from 22 witnesses in the first-ever criminal trial of an American president. Then, on Monday, it listened to hours of starkly contrasting views of the case offered by Trump defense lawyer Todd Blanche and prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.
Blanche, in a three-hour closing argument, assailed the prosecution’s key witness, Michael Cohen, Trump’s one-time political fixer turned acidic critic who testified that he wants Trump convicted.
The defense lawyer called Cohen, a convicted perjurer and disbarred lawyer, “the greatest liar of all time” and “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt” about the charges against Trump.
Blanche said Cohen’s suspect testimony, his theft of $60,000 from Trump’s real estate conglomerate and a history of lying over the years, which ironically was often on Trump’s behalf, gives the jury ample reason to acquit the country’s 45th president.
Cohen testified during the trial that Trump told him to "just do it" — pay $130,000 in hush money days ahead of the 2016 election to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to silence her claim she had a one-night sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied any liaison with Daniels.
A hush money deal is not illegal, but Trump is accused in a 34-count indictment of falsifying his company business records to hide the 2017 reimbursement of the hush money payment to Cohen, which Trump claimed was for money owed to Cohen for his legal work. The Trump defense claimed Cohen, on his own volition and without Trump’s knowledge, wired the hush money to Daniels’ lawyer.
The former president has denied the entirety of the indictment against him.
Prosecutor Steinglass, in a nearly five-hour closing argument that stretched into Tuesday evening, acknowledged Cohen’s shortcomings but contended they are a “sideshow,” saying that Trump engaged in a conspiracy "to corrupt the 2016 election."
He argued that an August 2015 deal cut by Trump and Cohen with David Pecker, then the publisher of the grocery store tabloid National Enquirer, to buy and bury unflattering stories about Trump and write negative and embellished ones about his political foes amounted to a “subversion of democracy” and led to the hush money payment to Daniels.
Steinglass said the newspaper was effectively a “covert arm” of the 2016 Trump campaign because it paid $30,000 to a doorman at a Trump building in New York to hide his ultimately false claim that Trump had fathered an illegitimate child, and $150,000 to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed she had a months-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007.
Trump has denied McDougal’s claim as well, although Pecker testified that Trump inquired about her well-being as they walked the White House grounds in 2017 after he became president.
As for Daniels’ claim of an encounter with Trump, Steinglass told the jurors, "You may say who cares if Mr. Trump slept with a porn star 10 years before the 2016 election. Many people feel that way. It's harder to say the American people don't have the right to decide for themselves whether they care or not."
Blanche told the jurors, "President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof — period."
He said the jury hearing the case should render "a very quick and easy not guilty verdict."
But prosecutor Steinglass told the jury “to remember to tune out the noise and to ignore the sideshows. And if you've done that ... you will see the people have presented powerful evidence of the defendant's guilt.”
"The law is the law, and it applies to everyone equally,” Steinglass said. “There is no special standard for this defendant."
Trump did not stop to comment on his nearly 11-hour day in court on Monday, but during one break during Steinglass' arguments, he posted a one-word assessment on his Truth Social platform, "Boring!"
Under New York court rules, the defense presented its argument first, followed by the prosecution, with no rebuttal by either side.
Trump complained on his Truth Social platform, “can you imagine that I, as a defendant, am not allowed to rebut or correct the many lies during the 5-hour filibuster” by Steinglass.
Under the U.S. legal system, the jurors must unanimously decide whether to acquit the 77-year-old Trump or find him guilty. If they cannot agree, resulting in a hung jury, prosecutors then would decide whether to retry the case.
For Trump, the outcome is consequential, not only for his personal freedom but his political fate. He is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate, set to run again in the November election against President Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020.
National polls show Biden and Trump locked in a tight contest, but some opinion polls indicate Trump supporters could switch their vote to Biden or not vote at all if the former president is convicted.
If convicted, Trump could be placed on probation or be sentenced to up to four years in prison, although he is certain to appeal and could continue to run for the presidency.
Trump is facing three other indictments, including two accusing him of illegally trying to upend his 2020 election loss. But all three cases are tied up in legal wrangling between his lawyers and prosecutors. As a result, the New York case nearing completion may be the only one decided before the November election.