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 greets jurors & immediately begins reading the #JuryInstructions. He tells them the instructions will take ≥1 hr to get through. He explains that any changes in his inflection are not intended to send a message.
Merchan tells jurors that it is not his responsibility to judge the #evidence in the case. “It is yours,” he says. “You are the judges of the facts, & you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty.”
#Merchan says that #jurors can draw inferences while evaluating the #evidence during deliberations. To explain the concept of an inference, he uses the example of a wet, rainy sidewalk in the morning. While one may not have seen it rain, Merchan says, one can infer that there was a storm or shower at some point overnight.
Justice #Merchan rereads some of the limiting instructions he read at trial, reminding #jurors that certain types of #evidence were presented for a limited purpose — e.g. to assess a witness’s credibility — & are not indications of #Trump's guilt in & of themselves.
Merchan reminds jurors that they cannot hold Trump’s choice not to testify against him as they deliberate.
#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.
After 5 wks of testimony, prosecutors & defense attys now present #ClosingArguments aka summations. Closing arguments give each side several hrs to highlight the #evidence that best proves its case. While similar to the opening statements delivered at a trial’s start, closing arguments tend to be more forceful.
When both sides are finished, Judge Juan #Merchan, will instruct the jurors on the #law & how to apply it to the evidence, & they will be sent off to deliberate.
Justice #Merchan cautions the jurors that the lawyers are simply making “arguments for your consideration.” He underscores that their words are not #evidence.
Already, the judge, both in & out of the presence of the jury, is dictating clear lanes. 1st he told the lawyers, then the jurors,that his instructions on the law were the only remarks on the #law that mattered. Merchan will listen to the closing arguments, & may be compelled to weigh in as each side objects to the other’s argument. #Trump
The prosecution alleges that #Trump was present when his employees hatched a plan to falsify the records, & did not stop them from doing so. The prosecution could even argue that Trump, as the boss, effectively approved the plan & thus caused it.
#Blanche claims that #MichaelCohen fully fabricated an encounter that he had w/Pecker in which #Pecker expressed anger that he had not been repaid for 1 of the #HushMoney deals. “Ladies & gentlemen, that lunch did not happen,” Blanche said. “Cohen made it up.”
Blanche doesn’t provide any #evidence Cohen made it up. Instead, Blanche reminds jurors that they should pay close attention to documentary evidence in assessing Cohen’s testimony.
#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.
#Steinglass says that the defense seemed to question the prosecution’s integrity when referring to certain documentary #evidence.
“There’s nothing sinister here, no manipulation,” Steinglass says, explaining that all relevant calls are in evidence. Then he argues that in a defense exhibit showing calls between #MichaelCohen & another lawyer, #RobertCostello, the defense “double counted half the calls.” (prosecution got the witness to admit it on the stand)
↑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.”
#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.
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.
Skop – who has called the supreme court’s overturning of #RoevWade “a victory in the battle but not the end of the #war” – has argued in favor of forcing #rape and #incest#victims as young as nine or 10 to carry #pregnancies to term.
..a bigger issue than whether #Pickton survives is the potential destruction of the #evidence.
“I act as legal counsel for 16 children of nine women who were killed by #RobertPickton,” he said. “It’s in their interest to preserve the evidence seized by the #RCMP on the Pickton farm to allow my clients to prove that Robert Pickton & #DavidPickton caused them to suffer loss.”