At times Tuesday, it was difficult to tell whether former President Donald Trump or his former ally Michael Cohen was on trial.
A largely stoic Trump nearly faded into the background as lawyers for the prosecution and the defense laid out their “summations” — closing arguments — in his hush money case in a worn-down New York courtroom.
Jurors were treated to dueling portrayals of Cohen, the star witness, and the relative significance of both his history of lies and the testimony he provided. State Judge Juan Merchan kept court in session into the evening to inch closer to the point at which Trump’s fate is handed to the jury.
Here are four takeaways from Day 21 of the first trial of a former U.S. president:
10 things the defense hates about Michael Cohen
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche focused much of his three-hour closing argument on Cohen, the onetime fixer for Trump whose colorful testimony and past often overshadowed other elements of the trial.
“He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true,” Blanche said. “Michael Cohen is the GLOAT — he’s literally the Greatest Liar of All Time.”
Cohen is at the center of a list, called “10 reasons why you have reasonable doubt,” that Blanche used to organize the case that jurors should find Trump not guilty on all counts.
Cohen’s credibility matters so much to the defense because his testimony tended to corroborate the state’s narrative. Trump is charged with falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels to help his successful 2016 campaign for the presidency.
Blanche argued that there is no evidence Trump knew about — or had any fraudulent intent surrounding — invoices for payments that Cohen said were designed to reimburse him for the out-of-pocket cost of buying Daniels’ silence about a sexual encounter that Trump has long denied.
Trump’s lawyer articulated a theory that Cohen, acting alone to win favor with Trump, cut the deal with Daniels. He said payments of more than $400,000 from Trump to Cohen were for general legal services rather than remuneration for the hush money.
And he accused Cohen of having an ax to grind, because he didn’t get a job in the Trump administration, and of making up his story. “You cannot convict President Trump of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.
Most telling, a slide Blanche showed the jury said simply, “Case turns on Cohen.”
Prosecutors know Cohen matters, too
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass contended that Cohen served more as a “tour guide” for the criminal case than as a make-or-break witness.
“They want to make this case about Michael Cohen,” Steinglass said. “It isn’t. That’s a deflection.”
Yet Cohen was also a central player in Steinglass’ closing remarks to the jury. Forced to address the defense’s portrayal of Cohen as both a liar and a lone wolf acting outside Trump’s authority, Steinglass countered with a different accounting of the relationship between the two men.
“He answered to the defendant directly. He got the jobs no one else wanted, the jobs the defendant wanted to keep quiet,” Steinglass said, describing Cohen as “more of a fixer than a lawyer” for Trump. “He was a way for the defendant to maintain plausible deniability — or, in this case given the evidence, implausible deniability.”
Ultimately, Steinglass said, the case rests on a mountain of documents and testimony from other witnesses. He went through much of it in painstaking — and time-taking — detail, addressing the jury for more than four hours.
Among the highlights: David Pecker, the former magazine publisher, testified that he, along with Trump and Cohen, hatched a scheme in 2015 to use the National Enquirer to help Trump’s presidential campaign. Longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks testified that Trump wanted the Daniels allegation killed because he thought “it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”
Steinglass, noting that Hicks broke into tears on the stand, described her testimony as “devastating.”
Business records show Trump paying Cohen $35,000 per month for what defense lawyers say was a retainer to provide legal services. Prosecutors and Cohen say the “legal services” categorization was used to hide the true nature of payments that made Cohen whole again after taxes.
What the case is really about, according to the prosecution
The prosecution’s case rests on establishing three facts, Steinglass said: that false business records were created, that the falsification was designed to cover up a conspiracy to aid Trump’s 2016 campaign and that Trump was involved in the conspiracy and intended to defraud the voting public.
The middle one — that a cover-up was designed to affect the election — is perhaps the trickiest to prove.
In trying to show the jury that the prosecution had already done just that, Steinglass revisited Oct. 7, 2016, when video of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women surfaced. The video was an old outtake from the television show “Access Hollywood.”
Its public release created “pandemonium in the Trump campaign,” Steinglass said, and resulted in Trump’s telling the public that it was just “locker room talk” as he tried to salvage his chances.
“During the exact same month the defendant was trying to sell the difference between words and actions, he was paying to muzzle a porn star” who claimed she had sex with him, Steinglass said, adding that Daniels “was a walking, talking reminder that the defendant was not only words.”
Trump, according to Hicks’ testimony, understood the fragility of his campaign at the time.
Steinglass showed the jury a flurry of communications among the key players in the catch-and-kill plan in the hours and days following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape. When AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, pulled out of discussions to buy Daniels’ story, Cohen was put in direct contact with Daniels’ lawyer, Keith Davidson.
Cohen opened a bank account on Oct. 26, 2016, for a new company formed for the purpose of making a payment to Daniels. The next day, he consummated the hush money deal by making a $130,000 transfer to Davidson.
Blanche, the defense lawyer, painted Trump as largely unconcerned about the “Access Hollywood” tape and, therefore, not worried that Daniels would cost him the election.
“He never thought it was going to cause him to lose the campaign,” Blanche said, “and, indeed, it didn’t.” Instead, Blanche said, Trump was worried about the video’s effect on his family.
Steinglass said there’s a simple reason the Daniels matter was settled within a couple of weeks of voters’ heading to the polls on Nov. 8, 2016, rather than closer to the alleged 2006 affair.
“The defendant’s primary concern was not his family but the election,” Steinglass said.
Sound bite city
Blanche sprinkled made-for-TV sound bites into his summation, mostly through barbs aimed at reminding the court that Cohen has done a lot of lying in his life.
Because the trial isn’t televised, the theatrics appeared to be for the benefit of the jury and for the audience of one — Trump — at the defense table.
“It — was — a — lie!” Blanche said, raising his voice and punctuating each syllable as he cast doubt on Cohen’s claim of updating Trump about negotiations to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence in October 2016. “That — is — perjury!”
Later, Blanche took two swings at giving Cohen an award for mendacity.
“He’s literally like the MVP of liars,” Blanche said. Then, just before he wrapped up, he tried again with the “GLOAT” formulation.
Not to be outdone, Steinglass fired a few zingers at defense lawyers. He took note, for example, of their penchant for pointing out that Cohen has lied to Congress in the past. The specific lies, Steinglass reminded the court, were told to protect Trump from investigations into his ties to Russia.
“That’s what some people might call chutzpah,” Steinglass said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
