Evidence against Trump in hush money case is ‘overwhelming,’ prosecutor tells jury in closing argument

The evidence in the criminal hush money case against former president Donald Trump is “literally overwhelming,” a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

“Focus on the evidence and the logical inferences that can be drawn from that evidence,” Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said at the end of his closing argument for the trial.

“In the interest of justice, and in the name of the people of the state of New York, I ask you to find the defendant guilty,” Steinglass said. “Thank you.”

Steinglass spent nearly five hours methodically reminding jurors of the testimony they had heard and evidence they had been shown.

All of it, the prosecutor argued, painted a picture of Trump directing and benefiting from a scheme to protect his presidential campaign from negative information about him becoming public during the 2016 election.

“Everything Mr. Trump and his cohorts did in this case was cloaked in lies,” Steinglass said.

“The name of the game was concealment, and all roads lead to the man who benefited the most, Donald Trump.”

Judge Juan Merchan told jurors to return to court at 10 a.m. Wednesday to receive about an hour’s worth of instructions on the law in the case.

Unlike most of the days of Trump’s five-week trial, the former president did not stop to speak to reporters Tuesday night.

Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels by his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

The 12-member jury then will begin deliberations later Wednesday.

Trump is the first former U.S. president ever to be tried in a criminal case.

If convicted, the statutory maximum sentence he could receive is four years in prison for each felony count.

Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, faces three other pending criminal cases, and three civil judgments holding him liable for more than $500 million in damages to the state of New York and the writer E. Jean Carroll.

Prosecution’s closing argument
Steinglass earlier Tuesday argued that the value of a “corrupt bargain” between the publisher of the National Enquirer, Trump and Cohen to suppress negative stories about Trump cannot be overstated, and might have been one of the most valuable political contributions ever.

“This scheme, cooked up by these men … could very well be what got President Trump elected,” Steinglass said in Manhattan Supreme Court.

David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified at trial about his agreement with Trump and Cohen to alert them to possibly damaging stories about the then-Republican presidential nominee, and his publication of negative stories about Trump’s political opponents, among them 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Pecker testified about how his company paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, to buy her silence before the 2016 election about her alleged sexual affair with Trump.

Pecker’s company also paid a Trump World Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin, $30,000 for his claim that Trump had a child out of wedlock with a housekeeper, a story the National Enquirer never ran.

“This was really catch and kill,” Steinglass said.

“Keep in mind Mr. Pecker has no reason to lie, no bias toward the defendant and thinks Mr. Trump is still a friend and a mentor,” Steinglass said, distinguishing the publisher and Cohen, a former pit bull for Trump who is now his bitter enemy.

The prosecutor also noted the timing of Cohen paying Daniels $130,000, at what Cohen has said was Trump’s direction, shortly before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual tryst that occurred a full decade earlier.

“It’s no coincidence that the sex happened in 2006, but the payoff happened less than two weeks before the 2016 election,” Steinglass said.

And that, the prosecutor argued, is because Trump’s main concern about Daniels going public with her claim the its potential effect on the election that year, not any effect on his family, as defense lawyers have said.

Earlier Tuesday, Judge Merchan blasted the former president’s defense lawyer Todd Blanche for arguing to jurors that “you cannot send someone to prison based on the words of Michael Cohen.”

Jurors in criminal cases are instructed to consider whether a defendant committed a crime, and not to factor in the potential punishment for that crime, such as prison.

After jurors had left the courtroom at the end of Blanche’s own closing argument, Merchan laid into him.

“I think that statement was outrageous, Mr. Blanche,” Merchan said.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/28/trump-trial-closing-arguments-begin-in-new-york-hush-money-case.html