NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial will enter its final stage Tuesday as defense lawyers and prosecutors deliver their closing arguments in a last attempt to sway the 12 New Yorkers who will decide his fate.
First the defense and then the prosecution will spend hours weaving disparate strands of evidence into a cohesive story that they hope will resonate with the jurors. To mold their dueling accounts, each side can draw from a deep well of evidence: testimony from 22 witnesses, reams of emails and a surreptitious recording of Trump coordinating a secret payoff.
To persuade the jury, the prosecution and defense will begin with different versions of the same basic set of facts: Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, struck a hush-money deal with a porn actor in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The undisputed facts concern that $130,000 transaction; Cohen paid the porn actor, Stormy Daniels, to silence her story of a sexual encounter with Trump.
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Pretty much everything else is up for debate.
Prosecutors have argued that Trump directed Cohen to pay Daniels and approved a criminal scheme to reimburse Cohen, disguising the repayments by saying that they were made for legal services that in fact were nonexistent. Their case is backed by the testimony of Cohen himself, as well as Daniels, several other witnesses and phone records, text messages and emails.
But the defense has cast Cohen as a liar, suggested that he acted alone in paying Daniels and argued that he was never even reimbursed for the payment. Instead, they have said, Trump repaid him for actual legal services. Trump also says he never had sex with Daniels.
Todd Blanche, the lead defense lawyer, is expected to deliver the closing argument and to assert that the case hinges on Cohen, whose testimony provided the only evidence that Trump had direct knowledge of a plot to falsify the reimbursement records. He will cast Cohen as a jilted ex-employee who is obsessed with Trump and would profit from his conviction.
He may also seek to call jurors’ attention to two key characters who did not testify: Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime moneyman, who prosecutors say devised the structure of the reimbursement, and Keith Schiller, Trump’s longtime bodyguard. In late 2016, both men had crucial dealings with Cohen revolving around the hush-money payment.
But Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor who will get the last word, could object to any references to Weisselberg, who is currently behind bars for perjury in a separate case. He is also expected to highlight every last shred of evidence — including testimony from other witnesses — that supports Cohen’s account of the hush-money deal and the reimbursement.
And Steinglass may remind jurors of Daniels’ deeply discomfiting testimony about what she says was an uninvited sexual encounter as he seeks to convince jurors that Trump was desperate to silence her story in the days before the 2016 election.
Here’s what to know as the trial enters its seventh — and potentially final — week.
— The closing statements are expected to last all Tuesday and could spill into Wednesday. As soon as Wednesday, the judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, will instruct jurors on the relevant law before they begin deliberations.
— It could take the jury anywhere from a few hours to weeks to reach a verdict. During private deliberations, the courtroom will be open to journalists, but little is expected to take place. Jurors can ask the judge for specific explanations on confusing points of law, or that testimony be read back in the courtroom.
— Trump is accused of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the reimbursement. If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison. The 22 witnesses did not include Trump, who opted not to take the stand in his own defense.
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