Takeaways from closing arguments in the Donald Trump hush money trial

Assistant District Legal professional Joshua Steinglass pushed again towards Blanche’s assault when it was his flip to current to the jury within the afternoon, arguing there was loads of corroboration of Cohen’s testimony, each from paperwork and the testimony of others, significantly former AMI chief David Pecker.

“We didn’t select Michael Cohen to be our witness. We didn’t choose him up on the witness retailer. The defendant selected Michael Cohen as his fixer as a result of he was prepared to lie and cheat on his behalf,” Steinglass mentioned of Cohen.

Steinglass tried to rebut Blanche’s allegation in regards to the October 24, 2016, name with a little bit of role-playing. The prosecutor put his thumb and forefinger to the aspect of his head and acted out a theoretical name Cohen might have made the place he talked to each Schiller and Trump.

“Hey, Keith, how’s it going? It looks as if this prankster may be a 14-year-old child,” Steinglass started the pretend dialog, pretending to maneuver into asking Schiller to move the telephone to Trump after which performing out a fast replace on Daniels and the fee.

When he completed the pretend dialog, Steinglass mentioned, “49 seconds.” The decision between Schiller and Cohen lasted 1 minute 36 seconds, in line with name logs.

“These guys know one another nicely. They communicate in coded language, and so they communicate quick,” Steinglass mentioned of Cohen and Trump.

Steinglass additionally targeted on testimony from Pecker to assist bolster Cohen’s credibility, reminiscent of exhibiting that Cohen’s story was corroborated by Pecker’s description of a telephone name with Trump in regards to the Karen McDougal story in June 2016.

“Trump is deputizing Cohen proper in entrance of Pecker in order that Pecker is aware of that any go forward from Cohen is a go head from Trump. This name makes it unimaginable for the protection to assert that Cohen was performing on his personal right here,” Steinglass mentioned, calling it “highly effective proof of the defendant’s involvement wholly aside from Cohen.”

Steinglass spent 4 hours and 41 minutes strolling jurors again by means of the entire paperwork and testimony that they had heard over the six-week trial, starting with the 2015 Trump Tower assembly throughout Trump’s stress of Cohen in 2018 earlier than Cohen started cooperating with federal investigators and pleaded responsible.

“The secret was concealment, and all roads lead inescapably to the person that benefited essentially the most, the defendant, former President Donald J. Trump,” he mentioned.

Steinglass argued that Pecker, Trump and Cohen entered right into a conspiracy in 2015 when Pecker agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of the marketing campaign – alleging that the settlement went nicely past the conventional bounds of a press relationship.

When the “Entry Hollywood” story got here out in October 2016, Steinglass mentioned that Trump and the marketing campaign went into panic mode. Across the time Trump’s marketing campaign was coping with the autumn out of the “Entry Hollywood” tape, he mentioned, Trump was “negotiating to muzzle a porn star who was ready to go public with allegations of extramarital intercourse.”

“Stormy Daniels was a strolling, speaking reminder that the defendant was not solely phrases. She would have completely undermined his technique for spinning away the ‘Entry Hollywood’ tape,” Steinglass mentioned.

Steinglass famous that when Cohen paid Daniels’ legal professional the $130,000 wire switch by means of an LLC, it shouldn’t be stunning to jurors that Trump wasn’t linked to the paperwork.

“Now it’s true that Mr. Trump didn’t signal these paperwork himself. That’s sort of the entire level,” Steinglass mentioned.

Steinglass walked jurors again by means of the hand-written calculations from former Trump Group Chief Monetary Officer Allen Weisselberg to repay Cohen, by which Weisselberg wrote on Cohen’s financial institution assertion that the reimbursement could be “grossed up” to account for taxes.

“We don’t must show that the defendant made and created the false entries himself,” Steinglass mentioned. Trump is responsible of false enterprise data when he makes or causes a false entry in his enterprise data, Steinglass argued.

Steinglass known as the handwritten notes from Weisselberg and former Trump Org. controller Jeff McConney “the smoking weapons.”

“They utterly blow out of the water the protection declare that the funds” have been for “authorized providers rendered,” he mentioned. “I’m virtually speechless that they’re making an attempt to make this argument.”

All through his presentation, Blanche continued to lift the idea of affordable doubt with the jury – even punctuating the conclusion of his closing argument with “10 causes” why jurors ought to have affordable doubt in regards to the case

“Every one among these causes makes a not responsible verdict a very simple path and a really fast path,” Blanche mentioned.

Amongst his arguments: that the invoices and vouchers created to pay Cohen have been correct as a result of Cohen was working as Trump’s legal professional, that Trump had no intent to defraud and that there’s no proof Trump knew the invoices have been despatched.

Blanche additionally argued there was no try to hide or commit one other crime – one of many situations wanted for a felony conviction – and there was “completely” no settlement to affect the 2016 election.

Blanche argued that AMI would have run former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin’s story about an alleged love baby had it been true, that McDougal didn’t need her story printed and that Daniels’ story was already made public in 2011, nicely earlier than the election.

Blanche concluded the place he began, arguing that Cohen was the “human embodiment of affordable doubt.”

“He lied to you repeatedly. He lied many, many occasions earlier than you even met him,” Blanche mentioned. “He’s biased and motivated to let you know a narrative that’s not true.”

– Supply:
CNN
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