Trump trial jury must now decide whether prosecutors left room for doubt amid ‘mountain’ of evidence

It’s easy to watch former President Donald Trump’s trial and conclude that he probably did exactly what prosecutors allege: protected his 2016 campaign by paying a porn star, then covered it up with fake government documents. payment.

Michael Cohen, the former president’s former fixer, said he was the tool used by Trump.

But “probably” is not the bar for jurors. They are responsible for assessing whether there is reasonable doubt. Only one of them can suspend the jury if he or she believes the state has failed to meet that burden.

The question then, as they begin reviewing the evidence Wednesday, is whether the witnesses and documents presented by the prosecution leave little room for doubt about Trump’s criminal culpability.

Like any seasoned prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass told the jury Tuesday he saw a “mountain” of evidence from the 34 alleged crimes.

Trump himself tweeted in 2018 that he had reimbursed Cohen for the hush money payment. It’s a claim Cohen bolstered by testifying that monthly payments worth $35,000 a year from Trump’s personal trust were that reimbursement — not the “legal retainer” outlined in business filings from Trump – with extra to cover taxes. and money for a separate deal with a tech company.

Trump’s lawyers argue that the records are truthful and that Cohen — who did little legal work — was actually paid more than $400,000 in one year to be on call as a lawyer.

They say Trump had nothing to do with Cohen’s invoices or the business vouchers involved in approving the monthly payments. Trump’s signature on the checks, they argue, does not prove he knew what he was paying for.

The room for interpretation on the nature of the payments may be limited by Trump’s tweet, which indicated that Cohen was reimbursed through a retainer. Trump also described the reimbursement in a filing with the Office of Government Ethics during his presidency.

Trump’s lawyers, led by Todd Blanche, argued that Cohen was dishonest in brokering a deal to buy out the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels — essentially that Trump didn’t know about it. No one has suggested that Trump and Daniels didn’t meet in a hotel room in 2006. Trump has denied Daniels’ allegations that they had sex. But that matters less than whether – or why – he wanted to prevent her from making her claim publicly.

Cohen and David Pecker, a former magazine editor, testified that they hatched a plan with Trump during the 2016 election to promote stories that helped Trump and those who hurt his opponents — and, most importantly, to kill the stories that could harm him. Cohen would be the go-between keeping Trump at bay.

That’s the role Cohen says he played when Pecker’s publication, The National Enquirer, decided not to “catch and kill” Daniels’ story by paying her to help Trump. Cohen intervened and made a deal with Daniels’ attorney, Keith Davidson. Cohen says he kept Trump informed throughout the process. According to documents admitted into evidence, a phone call between Trump and Cohen took place less than an hour after Cohen opened a bank account to transfer $130,000 to Davidson.

The defense pointed to a phone call Cohen said he had with Trump and said it was not about Daniels but rather a call to Trump aide Keith Schiller to take care of a teenager who Cohen said was harassing him. Prosecutors noted that the time of the phone call was long enough for Cohen to speak to Schiller about the issue and to Trump about the secrecy situation. Trump was with Schiller at the time, according to a photograph.

Perhaps what is hardest for the prosecution to convince is the idea that Trump executed the alleged scheme in order to win the 2016 election. His lawyers make a common-sense argument that he wanted Daniels is silenced in order to protect his family rather than save his campaign.

Motive is difficult to prove, especially when the accused does not testify or put sensitive issues in writing.

Prosecutors noted that Daniels’ story was purchased in the shadow of the Oct. 7, 2016, release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. The elections were a month away. Hope Hicks, a longtime Trump aide, said Trump later told her it would have been bad for the story “to have gone public before the election.”

“Stormy Daniels was a walking, talking reminder that the defendant was more than just words. She would have totally compromised his strategy of hijacking the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape,” Steinglass said. “Stormy Daniels was the motive.”

Blanche said the “Access Hollywood” tape created a difficult personal moment for Trump and that no one would want their family to be subjected to that. The conclusion left to the jury was that he also wouldn’t want Daniels’ story to appear in his wife and children’s news feeds.

On this point, jurors will have to decide whether they think there is reasonable doubt that Trump was motivated by winning the presidency.