Each page yesterday took him just a little more than a minute, so this will take >30 mins.
Between that & the testimony readbacks, also expected to take >30 mins, there will likely be >1 hour this morning w/the jury in the courtroom, not actively deliberating.
Another witness —who had no connection to the falsification of business records— was #StormyDaniels, whose #HushMoney from Cohen is what was covered up. Susan Necheles, the defense lawyer w/the most trial experience on Trump's team, worked aggressively to sow doubts about Daniels’s story w/the jury.
Tues 29 May 2024 🧵
Good morning! It’s the last day of the #TrumpTrial before jury #deliberations.
Today Justice #Merchan will give #JuryInstructions. Then they will discuss the case among themselves for the first time; they have not been allowed to even discuss it w/each other as yet.
Closing arguments took place yesterday, & the lawyers will have no further opportunity to address the jurors before they determine whether #Trump is #guilty or not guilty of 34 felonies.
Justice #Merchan commends the jury alternates for paying attention. The judge, who often watches the jury for attentiveness in case they need a break, praises one alternate in particular who went through “several notebooks” taking down notes.
Jurors 4 & 6, a man & a woman, are gathered around a laptop w/a paralegal for the prosecution. #Trump defense atty Todd #Blanche stands behind the computer looking on.
#Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection w/a #HushMoney payment made to a porn star to influence the 2016 election. The case could be in the jury’s hands as early as Wed.
#Blanche moves on to #MichaelCohen’s relationship w/ #RobertCostello, a lawyer who Cohen testified had been part of a pressure campaign to keep him from flipping on #Trump in 2018 (& whose testimony was insane)
Blanche argues there is “no doubt” that Costello, who is 1 of only 2 witnesses the defense called, served as Cohen’s atty —the trial presented plenty of doubt about the nature of Cohen & Costello’s relationship.
#Blanche mocks #MichaelCohen’s testimony about the evening of 24 Oct, 2016. The testimony on which the defense lawyers felt they had scored a key point, because they presented #evidence that Cohen had talked to #KeithSchiller, #Trump's bodyguard, about a 14-yr-old pranking him. Cohen clarified on redirect that he had talked to both Schiller & Trump during the call & prosecution entered into evidence photos of Trump & Schiller next to each other mins before the call.
But the defense clearly thinks it has a winning argument here. “It was a lie,” #Blanche yells of #MichaelCohen’s testimony. He calls it “perjury,” emphasizing each syllable in the word.
Blanche reminds jurors that there is an oath to tell the truth & says that it “matters to most.” 🤣🤣
#Blanche lists the people who he says #MichaelCohen has lied to, which includes his wife, his children, his banker, the #FEC & “every single reporter he talked to for about a year.”
Blanche tries what sounds like an attempt at a punchline: “He’s literally like the MVP of liars.”
#Blanche again argues that #Trump was in the #WhiteHouse when he signed 9 of the checks. Implying Trump was distracted when he signed them, & that his signature does not suggest his knowledge of the scheme.
‼️Using a slide labeled “manipulation of evidence,” Blanche now argues (again) that #MichaelCohen somehow tampered w/the digital evidence from his phones, including recordings. (Objection to just the label FFS!)
#Blanche says #jurors cannot trust those recordings, & they cannot rely on #MichaelCohen himself — which, the defense has said many times, is a reason not to #convict#Trump.
Blanche then listed 10 reasons that he believed the jury should have #ReasonableDoubt as to Trump’s #guilt. But the list was hard to follow. He misstated the 4th point, which he then broke into 3 parts. He gave them all equal weight & barely mentioned some of them in the rest of his summation.
#Blanche calls Cohen: “The human embodiment of reasonable doubt, literally.” (Umm, no not literally)
Blanche introduces the acronym G.O.A.T., commonly used to stand for “greatest of all time.” He then applies the acronym to Michael Cohen. “Michael Cohen is the G.L.O.A.T.,” Blanche says. The “greatest liar of all time.”
Before he concluded, #Blanche asked that #jurors not send his client to #prison. Now, w/the jury excused, Joshua #Steinglass, who will give prosecution’s closing argument, stands up & objects.
“That was a blatant & wholly inappropriate effort to call sympathy for their client,” Steinglass says, asking for a curative instruction.
Justice #Merchan is excoriating Blanche for making an “outrageous” statement.
Justice #Merchan, furious, reminds #Blanche, & not for the first time, that he was a prosecutor long enough to know it was out of bounds for him to basically beg jurors not to send #Trump to #prison.
Merchan told the court that he plans to give jurors a curative instruction — in other words, general direction that is aimed at clearing up an erroneous statement.
Justice #Merchan calls in the #jury & instructs them that #Blanche’s comment about sending #Trump “to prison” was “improper” & that they must disregard it. He reminds them that a #prison sentence is NOT required in the event of a #guilty#verdict.
↑This goes directly at 1 of the 10 reasons for reasonable doubt that #Blanche kinda listed at the end of his closing. Blanche questioned whether the #evidence was handled properly.
Next, #Steinglass says that one of the defense’s narratives is “this notion that #StormyDaniels is trying to extort the defendant … threatened to go public unless she was paid off. But that's just not reality.”
#Steinglass addresses another problem w/ #Blanche's argument — that he is trying to both say this wasn’t a reimbursement & it was also a legitimate legal expense.
“Their arguments are not necessarily consistent, but they’re passionate,” Steinglass says, about the defense's contradictory arguments at one point they argued #Trump didn’t know about the reimbursement & at another point that he did.
#Steinglass outlines their theory of the Aug 2015 meeting between #Trump, #MichaelCohen, & David #Pecker, of #NationalEnquirer, in which they agreed to a plot to suppress negative stories about Trump & promote negative stories about his opponents.
Steinglass punctures one of #Blanche’s go-to arguments —that The Enquirer is like all publications & Pecker's arrangement w/Trump wasn’t unusual. There is nothing normal or standard about what the tabloid was doing w/Trump.
Steinglass says while the phrase may not have been used much during the trial, the practice was exactly what had been agreed to, & argues that suppressing those stories amounted to committing a #fraud on American voters, pulling the wool over their eyes “in a coordinated fashion.”
#Steinglass notes that while NDAs are not inherently #criminal, but they are “indeed illegal when they serve an unlawful purpose.”
#Trump atty #Blanche barely stitched together a story, but tried to distance Trump from the documents & ended by attacking #MichaelCohen.
Steinglass tells a sweeping narrative about a #fraud on the American people, & argues that Americans had the right to determine if they cared that Trump slept w/a porn star while his wife was home w/their new baby.
#Trump atty Todd #Blanche, during his closing, tried to convince the jury that the prosecution’s case relied entirely on #MichaelCohen. Josh #Steinglass is taking that argument on directly & indirectly. As he moves through the case’s timeline, showing every piece of documentary #evidence the prosecution has, he is reinforcing just how much does not rely on Cohen, but on the testimony of witnesses who are friendly to Trump & on phone records you can’t dispute.
“You almost have to laugh at the way Mr. #Blanche explained it to you,” he says. “They would have destroyed evidence — committed another crime — to hide this crime, but because they didn’t do that, & these documents exist” that’s evidence that there was no crime.
#Blanche tried to make the fact that #MichaelCohen didn’t remember how much he was owed each month for the reimbursements into a suspicious thing. But #Steinglass says it demonstrates that there was no retainer agreement, & that the knowledge & the math was then in the hands of #Trump’s employees.
Steinglass shows Trump’s filing w/the federal government’s Office of Government #Ethics in May 2018 that revealed #Trump had made a payment to #MichaelCohen. The filing came days after #RudyGiuliani said on #FoxNews that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the #StormyDaniels payment.