Election conspiracies are ‘done all the time’, Trump lawyer tells trial jurors – The Guardian US
Hush-money trial enters final stages as defense makes closing argument in case centered on allegedly falsified business records
Donald Trump’s secret plot to bury negative press ahead of the 2016 election deprived Americans of their right to choose a candidate at the ballot box, said the prosecution in its summation on Tuesday at the former president’s New York hush-money trial.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass’s closing statement reminded jurors of a summer 2015 meeting at Trump Tower where the real estate mogul sat with then consigliere Michael Cohen and tabloid honcho David Pecker.
At this meeting, Pecker said, he agreed to apprise them of negative stories that could thwart Trump’s campaign, so they could work to bury them; this would come to include adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegation of an extramarital liaison with Trump about 10 years prior.
“Three rich and powerful men, high up in Trump Tower, tried to become even more powerful by controlling the information that reached voters,” Steinglass said.
“The value of this corrupt bargain. It turned out to be one of the most valuable contributions to the Trump campaign. This scheme cooked up by these men, at this time, could very well be what got Donald Trump elected.”
Steinglass urged jurors to “tune out the noise and ignore the sideshows”.
“And if you’ve done that,” Steinglass told jurors, “you will see that the people have presented powerful evidence.”
Steinglass’ closing – which he said could take four-and-one-half hours – came after Trump’s defense team presented an hours-long summation that featured eyebrow-raising elements, including his claim that conspiracies to win elections happen all the time.
“It doesn’t matter if there was a conspiracy to try and win an election,” Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said of the alleged payoff plot involving Trump, who is accused elsewhere of election meddling and fomenting civil unrest to thwart Joe Biden from taking office. “Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate.”
Blanche’s comment came as he insisted to jurors that Trump did not falsify business records – nor did he try to – and that jurors need not even consider his alleged efforts to sway the 2016 race by burying potentially damaging news coverage. Prosecutors allege that Trump plotted a catch-and-kill scheme during a summer 2015 meeting with his then fixer Michael Cohen and the tabloid mogul David Pecker.
“Many politicians work with the media to try and promote their image,” Blanche also said, adding that Pecker had provided favorable coverage to Trump for decades – far before his candidacy – “because it was good for business”. He called this symbiosis between media and politicians “standard operating procedure”.
Blanche did not admit that Trump plot with cronies to influence election results with a hush-money payment, and denied there was a conspiracy or collusion, but presented it more as a hypothetical: even if a media-campaign collusion did happen, there was “nothing criminal, nothing criminal about it, it’s done all the time”, Blanche said.
“You have to find that this effort was done by unlawful means,” he said at one point.
At the end of his summation, Blanche provided 10 reasons why jurors should find reasonable doubt – and acquit Trump. Among these reasons: Cohen created the invoices for legal services, not Trump, and there was no proof that he ever saw the vouchers or checks which prosecutors claim are illegal, Blanche said.
Blanche also said there was no evidence that Trump tried to defraud anyone, noting that a tax document was issued to Cohen. He said that there was no reason to do anything illegal to cover up Daniels’ account, noting that it had already been public.
No 10 on Blanche’s list was Cohen.
“Cohen is the human embodiment of reasonable doubt,” Blanche said. He referred to the acronym Goat, which refers to athletes and performers at the top of their game.
“Have you guys heard of Goat, a goat, greatest of all time,” he said, noting that Tom Brady is called Goat of football. “Michael Cohen is the Gloat – the greatest liar of all time.”
Trump, who is almost certain to secure the Republican presidential nomination, is charged with falsifying business records related to paying the adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence about an alleged sexual liaison.
Prosecutors argue that the recording of these payments in business records amounts to election interference, as Trump was running in the 2016 race for the White House at the time of the payoff and seeking to cover up a potentially damaging scandal.
For weeks, testimony has gripped the US and the world amid the prospect that the former president could be found guilty of a crime, though details of the case and Trump’s liaison with Daniels have had seemingly little impact on the 2024 race – where Trump still often narrowly leads Joe Biden in head-to-head polls and is performing strongly in the swing states that are crucial to victory.
Trump denies all the allegations.
Trump, sporting a crimson tie and crisp white shirt, walked into court just before 9.30am, carrying a sheet of paper. He was accompanied by his daughter Tiffany and two of his sons, Eric and Donald Jr.
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“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” Blanche said moments into his closing argument, after he started by thanking the jury for their service.
“The evidence is all in. It all came in as of last Tuesday. And that evidence, as I said to you on April 22, should leave you wanting more.”
The trial has played out in remarkable scenes in which Trump has been in court and largely kept off the campaign trial, except at weekends and some events in and around New York City. Despite admonishments from the court, he has continued to rail against his prosecutors, and Judge Juan Merchan, on social media, labelling the trial as a “witch-hunt”.
Central to the case is the testimony of Trump’s former lawyer and once-feared fixer Cohen. Cohen gave vital evidence for the role that Trump played in the alleged hush-money scheme, but was also brutally grilled by Trump’s lawyers for his previous history of lying and his evident dislike of his former boss and desire to see him behind bars.
What weight the jury places on the reliability of Cohen’s testimony is likely to decide the case one way or the other. If found guilty, Trump could face the prospect of jail, though that is mostly seen as unlikely. Any guilty verdict would also almost certainly trigger a lengthy series of appeals.
In his closing, Blanche repeatedly hammered on Cohen’s credibility. “The words that Michael Cohen said to you on that stand, they matter. They matter,” Blanche said. “He told you a number of things on that witness stand that were lies.”
He emphasized that the invoices in the case were submitted by Cohen, adding: “You cannot convict President Trump. You cannot convict President Trump of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt based on the word of Michael Cohen.”
Blanche urged jurors to want more than Cohen’s testimony and, referring to Daniels, “something beyond the word of a woman who claims that something happened in 2006”.
He also insisted that the key allegation of prosecutors – that business records were falsified because they wrongly claimed that repayments were for legal services – fell flat, insisting that Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer and “was rendering services to President Trump in 2017 as his personal attorney”.
During his closing, Steinglass tried to address concerns about Cohen’s credibility as the defense repeatedly said that Cohen was dishonest and hell-bent on revenge. Steinglass admitted that Cohen had an interest in this case beyond just testifying – and told jurors they’re free to take that into account during deliberations.
“Michael Cohen is understandably angry,” Steinglass said. “To date, he’s the only one who’s paid the price. Pecker got a non-prosecution agreement. Cohen did the defendant’s bidding for years – his right-hand man, his consigliere … and when it went bad, the defendant cut him loose, like a hot potato, and tweeted out to the world that Cohen was a scumbag, a sleazebag, and all the while, the election law violations to which Cohen pleaded guilty were done at the direction of the defendant!”
Steinglass continued, saying Cohen “made his bed”, but “you can hardly blame him for making money off the one thing he has left, which is his knowledge of the inner workings of the Trump phenomena”.
“It’s obvious they want to make this case about Michael Cohen. It isn’t – that’s a deflection,” he said. “This case is not about Michael Cohen. This case is about Donald Trump – and whether he should be held accountable for making false entries in his own business records.
“Michael Cohen’s significance in this case is that he provides color and context to documents He’s like a tour guide.”
Trump also faces three other criminal trials: one for trying to sway the 2020 election in Georgia, another for his conduct around the January 6 attack on the Capitol and a third one related to his treatment of sensitive documents after he left the White House. However, all three have been seriously delayed and none are seen as likely to conclude – or even start – before November’s presidential election.