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30-05-2024
NEW YORK: Jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday after receiving instructions from the judge on the law and the factors they may consider as they strive to reach a verdict in the first criminal case against a former American president.
“It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours,” Judge Juan M. Merchan told jurors.
The deliberations follow a marathon day of closing arguments in which a Manhattan prosecutor accused Trump of trying to “hoodwink” voters in the 2016 presidential election by participating in a hush money scheme meant to stifle embarrassing stories he feared would torpedo his campaign.
“The name of the game was concealment, and all roads lead inescapably to the man who benefited the most: the defendant, former President Donald Trump,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors.
Trump’s lawyer, by contrast, branded the star prosecution witness as the “greatest liar of all time” as he proclaimed his client innocent of all charges and pressed the panel for an across-the-board acquittal.
The lawyers’ dueling accounts, wildly divergent in their assessments of witness credibility, Trump’s culpability and the strength of evidence, offered both sides one final chance to score points with the jury as it prepares to embark upon the momentous and historically unprecedented task of deciding whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ahead of the November election.
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 wrongdoing. It’s unclear whether prosecutors would seek imprisonment in the event of a conviction, or if the judge would impose that punishment.
Jurors will have the option of convicting Trump of all counts, acquitting him of all counts, or delivering a mixed verdict in which he is found guilty of some charges and not others. If they deadlock after several days of deliberations and are unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Merchan may declare a mistrial.
To convict Trump, jurors must find beyond a reasonable doubt that he falsified or caused business records to be entered falsely and did so with the intent to deceive and the intent to commit or conceal another crime.
Under the law, if they do not find that prosecutors have proven one or both of those elements, they must acquit Trump. Prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records to hide breaches of campaign finance law and a violation of a state election law alleging a conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.
The trial featured allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to stifle potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign through hush money payments, including to a porn actor who alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier. His lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that neither the actor, Stormy Daniels, nor the Trump attorney who paid her, Michael Cohen, can be trusted.
“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” Blanche said.
With the start of deliberations just hours away, Trump posted another all-caps rant about the trial, the judge and Cohen on his social media network before leaving Trump Tower for the courthouse Wednesday morning.
He called it a “Kangaroo Court!” and falsely claimed that the judge barred him from defending himself by claiming that his alleged actions were taken on the advice of his then-lawyer, Cohen. Trump’s lawyers in March notified the court that they would not rely on that defense. (Int’l News Desk)
