CNN
—
Donald Trump, who built his mystique as an arrogant symbol of power, has never been more powerless to decide his own fate.
His reputation, his future and perhaps even the fate of the White House will rest in the hands of 12 citizens of his native New York City on Wednesday — proof that even a former and likely future president cannot be above the law.
After Judge Juan Marchan briefed the jurors on the law and their duties, the seven men and five women jurors retired for six weeks of deliberation in Trump’s hush money trial. Never before in American history had a jury been tasked with deciding whether a former president and presumed major party nominee for guilt should be convicted. The jury can deliberate as long as they need, but the testimony and evidence in the case alone will determine a verdict on 34 felony charges, a decision that will reverberate across the country and the world at a critical juncture in the 2024 presidential election.
The trial stalled toward its conclusion on Tuesday, with nearly 10 hours of closing arguments that were marked by hostility between opposing lawyers.
“You have to put aside the distractions, the press, the politics, the noise. Focus on the evidence and the logical inferences you can draw from that evidence,” prosecuting attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors.
“In the interest of justice and in the name of the people of the state of New York, I ask that you find the defendant guilty. Thank you.”
Prosecutors have charged former President Trump with “conspiracy and concealment” and alleging he betrayed 2016 voters by illegally falsifying financial records to hide hush money payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the election. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels and has pleaded not guilty to the case, the first of four looming criminal charges against him. It may be the only case to go to trial before the November election. To convict Trump, a jury would first have to find that he falsified financial documents and did so with the express intent of committing another crime.
The former president watched the proceedings quietly but intently in court on Tuesday after days of fierce attacks on judges, prosecutors and the justice system.
Lead defense attorney Todd Blanche has sought to gut the credibility of the case’s central witness, Michael Cohen, labeling the self-described former Trump “thug” a “GLOAT” and arguing there’s no evidence he committed a crime or that Trump orchestrated the Daniels bribe scheme. Conjuring a dark image that captured his client’s cynical view of democracy, Blanche said, “Every political campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people working together to help someone win.”
The former president chose not to testify in his own defense, often finding himself in the unusual position of having to sit on the sidelines with his arms draped over his chair and leave someone to speak on his behalf. Trump spent six ignominious weeks breathing the stale air of the eerie tower block of a courthouse that has meted out justice to New York’s most notorious murderers, con men and mob bosses. The yellowed whitewashed walls, spartan furniture and fluorescent lights define the soulless abyss of the American criminal justice system, which may have seemed an affront to a developer who frequently boasts about the grandeur of his buildings and prefers to spend his time beneath the glittering chandeliers and gilded opulence of his multiple mansions.
The final stages of the criminal trial take on a somber tone as the stakes for the defendant begin to unfold. The case is even more sobering because it’s entangled with a presidential election that will decide the country’s future. And it has a painfully personal dimension: The city where Mr. Trump made his name and transformed its streetscape during the tabloid era of the 1980s is about to hold a trial for his estranged son.
The events outside the courtroom underscored the growing importance of the final ruling just five months after the now-close election between President Trump and President Joe Biden. Hollywood legend Robert De Niro appeared on behalf of the Biden campaign, accompanied by several police officers who had been assaulted by the former president’s mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to blast “Loser Trump.” De Niro, star of films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and a New York City icon, got into a classic finger-pointing game with heckling bystanders who spread misinformation about the storming of the Capitol.
Minutes later, Trump’s adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, showed up to help their father, who was facing prison time for repeatedly violating a gag order. “We understand this is political persecution, and the Biden campaign having a rally here today proved that,” Don Trump Jr. said. “They’re bringing in Robert De Niro, and apparently he needs attention, because it’s been a while since he’s done a good movie.”
Biden’s team has sought to distance itself from Trump’s criminal case to avoid accusations like those issued by the former president’s campaign on Tuesday, but its decision to get involved at a critical juncture in the Republican front-runner’s trial begins to answer questions about how Biden’s team will react at the end of the trial and how Trump will respond to weeks of campaigning being ushered through the courts..
Despite the mayhem outside the courtroom, the trial doesn’t seem to have captured the public’s imagination the way past celebrity trials, such as those of O.J. Simpson or the late King of Pop Michael Jackson, have. That’s partly because there were no TV cameras in Marchan’s courtroom. But some polls suggest that a conviction could make some Republicans hesitant to elect a convicted felon in November, despite Trump’s strategy of weaponizing his legal woes in the Republican primary and portraying himself as a persecuted victim in the general election. In a close race for the White House, where the outcome is likely to be decided by tens of thousands of votes in just a few battleground states, even a defection of a few thousand people from the former president could have a major impact.
If Trump is convicted, he would undoubtedly lash out and double down on his vows to devote a second term to personal and political “retribution,” which could play into Biden’s central campaign theme that American democracy is at stake, while an acquittal could give Trump’s supporters legitimacy in their claims that all of his legal woes are a witch hunt.
Trump complained bitterly on Tuesday that the defense had been given the right to make closing statements first, potentially leaving the prosecution’s case at its sharpest when the jury came to decide, but he did not mention that New York law is set up that way.
On one of the most crucial days of Trump’s life, Blanche methodically dismantled the prosecution’s case, attempting to cast reasonable doubt on multiple testimonies and pieces of evidence. For starters, Blanche spoke calmly and conversationally, without any of the often self-destructive theatricality that the former president sometimes demands from his lawyers. All Blanche had to do was to sow doubt in one juror, so that if the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict, the judge would be forced to declare a mistrial. “We don’t have to prove anything,” Blanche told the jury. “The onus is always on the government.”
Branche argued that Cohen did significant legal work as Trump’s private lawyer, and countered the prosecution’s argument that the payments made after Trump became president were disguised as reimbursement of $130,000 that Cohen paid Daniels. She told the jury there was no evidence that Trump orchestrated a plot to overturn the 2016 election, or that his staff even knew what he was doing under his name. Branche repeatedly argued about the credibility of Cohen, the prosecution’s most important witness, portraying him as a habitual liar who was caught red-handed not telling the truth on the stand and who was making millions of dollars off of Trump’s legal battles.
“We cannot convict President Trump,” Blanch said, repeating the phrase for emphasis, impressing on the jurors the gravity of the historic proceeding before them. “We cannot convict President Trump of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt based on the words of Michael Cohen.” Blanch ended her closing statement by listing 10 reasons why the jury should have a reasonable doubt. Among them were that there was no intent on Trump’s part to falsify documents or evidence of a plot to interfere in the 2016 election, while arguing that Trump’s intention was to spare his family the embarrassment that the Daniels reports caused.
Judge Blanche continued his Trump-esque oratory until his final moments with the jury, pleading with them not to violate legal etiquette and send the former president to prison in a way that would infuriate Judge Marchan. After the jurors returned from a break, the judge warned them that their job was to judge the evidence, not to speculate on what punishment Trump might face if convicted.
Prosecutors expand election interference case
Steinglass began his closing argument with a lengthy rebuttal to Blanche’s summing up statement, seeking to show that Cohen’s credibility was not the deciding factor and that in any event the charges were supported by other testimony.
Steinglass reiterated that the alleged crimes were not a sleazy attempt to cover up personal transgressions, but a threat to the integrity of our electoral system. “You might say, who cares that Trump slept with a porn star 10 years before the 2016 election? Many people feel that way. It’s even harder to say that the American people have no right to decide for themselves whether they care,” he said.
Some observers have said the extraordinary precedent of indicting and trying a former president should start with criminal allegations that threaten the integrity of the republic itself. Trump’s other impending trials — including those for attempting to interfere in the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents — may approach that threshold. But Steinglass rejected the idea that this case was relatively minor.
He said the value of this “corrupt transaction” “cannot be overstated,” adding that it “was one of the most valuable contributions to the Trump campaign” and that “it is entirely possible that the scheme these men hatched during this period led to the election of President Trump.”
