Defense attacks Cohen, prosecution attacks Trump in hush money trial closing

NEW YORK – A prosecutor urged jurors in marathon closing arguments Tuesday to convict Donald Trump in a hush money scheme “that could very well be what got President Trump elected” in 2016 – suggesting that the stifled tale of sex with a porn star changed the course of American history.

By offering that the alleged crimes may have decided the winner of the 2016 presidential race, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass implicitly highlighted the potential stakes of the seven-week trial – that the jury’s verdict here could alter the 2024 presidential contest, in which Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

Steinglass said the evidence is overwhelming that Trump knew of and directed efforts to falsify business records related to the reimbursement of a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

It was a “conspiracy and a coverup” that stretched from the campaign trail to the White House, Steinglass told the jury, pushing back forcefully against defense arguments that the payments were routine and Trump did nothing wrong.

“Everything Mr. Trump and his cohorts did in this case was cloaked in lies,” the prosecutor said near the end of a summation that stretched well over four hours. “The name of the game was concealment, and all roads lead inescapably to the man who benefited most: the defendant, former president Donald Trump.”

Defense attorney Todd Blanche offered his closing first on Tuesday, telling jurors that the prosecution’s evidence was so weak, they should return “a very quick and easy not-guilty verdict.”

The defense attorney insisted that Trump was not aware of the payment to Daniels by Michael Cohen, his onetime lawyer and fixer, and that Trump’s subsequent payments to Cohen were legitimate compensation for legal work.

Blanche argued that the prosecution’s entire case is built around the word of Cohen, a convicted liar and admitted thief, adding that a popular acronym in sports, the GOAT, or “greatest of all time,” could be applied to Cohen – with one change in the wording.

Cohen is “literally the greatest liar of all time,” or GLOAT, Blanche said. “He’s the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”

Steinglass urged the panel to focus not on Cohen but on his former boss.

“This case is not about Michael Cohen. This case is about Donald Trump and whether he should be held accountable,” the prosecutor said, comparing Cohen to a “tour guide” who can explain the paper trail of the payments.

“You don’t need Michael Cohen to connect these dots, but as the ultimate insider he can help you to do just that,” Steinglass said. “Like all fixers, Cohen knew where the bodies were buried.”

Trump, on trial for 34 counts of falsifying business records, watched closely as the lawyers argued over his fate, turning in his chair to watch both Blanche and Steinglass as they delivered summations after weeks of presenting evidence.

At times during his closing, Blanche raised his voice and bellowed, such as when he accused Cohen of perjury. Other times, the lawyer seemed to be racing in trying to describe all the problems he saw with the prosecution’s case. Speaking fast then slow, quiet then loud, Blanche’s theme was nevertheless constant: A case centered on Cohen was built on quicksand.

Steinglass, by contrast, was more measured in his delivery, though at times he took sarcastic jabs at the defense lawyers. By late afternoon, some of the jurors seemed restless as he recounted chapter and verse of the evidence.

In stark terms, he described a conspiracy by wealthy and well-connected people to sabotage democracy – that to some extent succeeded.

The prosecutor said a 2015 meeting – between Trump, Cohen and the chief executive of the company that ran the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid – featured “three powerful men high up in Trump Tower trying to control the flow of information that might reach the voters.”

The three allegedly agreed that the tabloid would keep an eye out for scandalous stories about Trump, part of a “catch and kill” scheme to try to protect the candidate from any skeletons in his closet.

“It was a subversion of democracy,” Steinglass said.

At one point, he walked away from the lectern and toward the defense table, stretching his arm wide and pointing at Trump as he cited something the then-president’s team had said about Daniels in 2018. “The statement that this defendant put out … was a lie,” the prosecutor said.

Blanche focused on trying to cut every thread of possible trustworthiness that Cohen may have created with the jury, telling the panel that Cohen lied to them repeatedly during the trial, on key issues and small ones, and that doing so was simply his nature.

“He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true,” Blanche said, because Cohen is “obsessed” with Trump and out for revenge. “He came in here and raised his right hand, and he lied to each of you.”

Blanche emphasized other points also built around the idea that Cohen is inherently unreliable. The defense lawyer said the reality of the Daniels payoff was that she and her lawyer set out to shake down Trump for money once he became a presidential candidate.

The evidence, Blanche argued, was far more convincing that Cohen had acted alone in arranging the hush money payment.

But Steinglass said Cohen’s account of his interactions with Trump was believable and supported by phone records, witness testimony and common sense.

He reminded the panel that Cohen testified he never would have paid $130,000 in hush money to Daniels on his own, because he never would have done anything that significant without Trump’s sign-off. As Steinglass made that point, a male juror in the front row nodded.

Steinglass also tried to attack what was arguably the defense’s strongest moment in the trial – when Blanche confronted Cohen with evidence indicating that an October 2016 phone call, which Cohen said was a discussion between him and Trump about hush money, was instead a conversation with Trump’s security man about a different issue.

Using something like prosecutorial artistic license, Steinglass offered an imaginary conversation in which Cohen talked to the security man and then spoke to Trump about the hush money, all in well under the time the actual phone call took, according to records submitted at trial.

Blanche told jurors that prosecutors called Daniels to testify not because she had any evidence to offer but because her account of a sexual encounter with Trump would make the former president look bad in the jury’s eyes.

“Why did they call her as a witness in this trial?” Blanche asked rhetorically, noting that Daniels has no firsthand knowledge of allegedly false records about payment and reimbursements. “They did it to try to inflame your emotions, they did it to try to embarrass President Trump.”

Outside the courthouse, the significance of the closing arguments was not lost on President Biden’s reelection campaign.

For the first time, the campaign sent surrogates – including actor Robert De Niro and two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – to speak out against Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the prosecution as politically motivated and blamed it on Biden, even though it is a state case and the White House has steered clear of involvement in any of Trump’s criminal cases.

Biden campaign officials insisted they came not to address the trial but to take advantage of the huge gathering of TV cameras outside the courthouse – a chance to inject the current president’s messaging into the trial coverage, which is the focus of live network broadcasts.

The speakers focused on Trump’s record during his term in office and what he might do in a second term, without offering commentary on the court proceedings.

But the Trump campaign redoubled its efforts to portray the case as politicized.

“The fact they’re holding a rally across the street from this very witch hunt tells us what we all knew: that this is a political persecution,” Donald Trump Jr. told reporters during the lunch break.

Inside the courtroom, the afternoon session stretched into the evening, as Steinglass took jurors laboriously through the witness testimony and documents submitted as evidence throughout the trial.

After showing the panel the first of a number of Cohen reimbursement checks at issue, he made a joke at his own expense: “I know what you’re thinking. Is this guy going to go through every single month’s worth of checks?”

A few jurors smirked at the dry humor.

Four minutes before the 8 p.m. deadline set by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, Steinglass finished his summation.

Court was adjourned until 10 a.m. Wednesday.

The judge said that after he instructs the jury, they will deliberate until 4:30 p.m., then resume Thursday if they have not reached a verdict.

As he exited the courtroom, Trump forcefully flipped the lapels of his suit jacket and grimaced.