‘Right here’s showtime’: Closing arguments in Trump hush money trial initiate

The jury is now entering the courtroom. And let me just bring you all up to speed as to what's been going on inside the courtroom. in the last few minutes. So obviously all the players are there, in the aisle, from the aisle, we see, the presidents family,.

Former presidents family. Tiffany, Lara Trump, Eric Trump and Don Jr, all seated in that order in the row behind him. So a big representation of his family there supporting him. In addition, Susie Wiles, who helped run his campaign.

And Alina Haba, his, attorney, for other cases. right now, the Todd Blanch, the, attorney, the defense attorney for Mr. Trump said he expects to go 2.5 hours for his summary for his closing arguments. and he goes first. Josh Rothstein glass,.

Who is with the prosecutors office, says he estimates he needs four to 4.5 hours. That's about seven hours total. Assuming they keep to those, parameters. So this is a pretty huge moment. It is everything. This is show time. These jurors have not heard much of this evidence for over.

More than almost a week at this point. You also have the judge saying the conclusions are reasonable, logically, with evidence that you may adopt those inferences and conclusions. So inference is very, very important here because a lot of the case has been circumstantial evidence.

Without having that third man in the room at, Allen Weisselberg with having Michael Cohen with credibility issues as well. But keep in mind, this has been over four weeks now. Maybe in total, these jurors at the time, they were actually put into this.

Jury box. Well, now they're going to have to revisit all the very key important moments. It's up to the defense counsel and the prosecution to highlight for them what those important moments are going to be. And the defense now has to front.

What they think the prosecution will highlight. Without a chance of rebuttal, they're going to have to choose their bite at the apple very carefully and make sure the jury is riveted. And this will be the time to lean in, to have the emphasis,.

To have some of the theatrical. You also have the jurors being reminded nothing the lawyers say at any time as evidence. So nothing the lawyers say in summation, as evidence. They'll have their notebooks for the jurors to remind themselves and their memory will control.

The defense attorney has started. He tells the jury. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. He thanks them. for their service, on the jury. the idea that this is a misdemeanor, the falsifying the business records allegedly is a misdemeanor. But the fact that it is in service.

To a different crime, this election interference theory, is a complicated one. And, I'm not sure that every American or even every juror, although they're smarter than us, I'm sure at this point, understands.

Exactly how it works. And so the prosecution is going to have to explain that. What are you looking at me for? You're the poor woman. What's complicated for a woman? And your mom was a judge, so. Thank you. So I do want to remind everyone what we've said along.

There are two lawyers on this jury. We do not know whether they will have an outsized influence. We don't even know whether the other jurors know what everybody does for a living. But if they do know their lawyers, some of this interpretation.

And explanation may come out. I just go to the end of the day to common sense and to the question of, you know, this next step. Does Donald Trump have a motive? Obviously, we have the defense on here. We don't know the prosecutor, but this happened in October, two weeks.

Before the election of 2016 of 2016. Donald Trump, there is testimony that he said women will hate me. There is testimony from Stormy Daniels that he didn't care what his wife, would think about something like this. There is testimony that he was suggesting. Let's wait to pay till after the election.

Because then it won't matter. So my question is, does testimony like that put together with testimony from friendly witnesses, people like Hope Hicks, Rhona Graff, David Pecker give the jury the common sense to support what the prosecutors say.

Versus what's the defense going to say, Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen, Michael or I agree, or I think one of the points that you were trying to get at is whether or not the jury is going to say, come on, this is this is really a crime.

Is this really or is any of this any of these? Todd Bland just said, it's as true right now, as it was on April 22nd. He's, he's referring to the fact that everybody. So, paying close attention,.

And that is, that Donald Trump is innocent. President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes. And the district attorney has not met their burden of proof. The evidence is all in. He did not commit any crimes. The district attorney's not met.

Their burden of proof, period. The evidence is all it's mine says. Sorry. No, I mean, and, I'm guessing that after that, the evidence should leave you wanting more. You should want and expect more than the testimony of Michael Cohen. Yeah.

And this is this is all going to go along the same lines, which is, not only that, they the prosecution, he's arguing, didn't meet the burden of burden of proof. You should demand more than the testimony of Keith Davidson,.

An attorney who really was just trying to extort money from Trump before the election. So, yeah, he's in he's introducing, this Star Wars cantina scene of witnesses that, that the prosecution has brought out.

No. Looks around to Donald Trump, looks to say, that's right. I do take them. Well, Keith Davidson is documented. Okay. This case is not about an encounter with stormy Daniels 18 years ago. Before we get to the next one,.

Let me just get the point out that I was trying to make the case. This, does make it. Which is he is going to argue to the jury that this is a prosecution in search of a crime. we are continuing to monitor what is coming out of the court.

Nothing new, from our correspondent inside. just Todd Blanchard telling the jury last we heard that President Trump has an unequivocally denied encounter with Stormy Daniels wife says the jury must decide if Trump had anything to do.

With how payments to Michael Cohen were accounted for. Paul, you and I were just talking about whether, while the jury is deliberating whether the former president actually has to remain in the courthouse, top line says the bookings were accurate.

And there was absolutely no intent to defraud. And this is the crux of their argument, right. The documents were not falsified. So yeah, we were talking about, well, will Trump be in court while they're deliberating? And I was just informed that he's actually required to be here.

So he will be here throughout deliberation, no matter how long. Deliberations exactly. Because I've reported before, he's already not happy that they're not getting the last word. He's going to be like a caged tiger there.

Look, this courthouse is not nice. We've all been inside of it. Now, the bookings, of course, are saying we're accurate and there's absolutely no intent to defraud. And then we just we just cover this. And this is an important point because this is a paperwork.

Case at its core. And they're arguing, look, these were invoices from Michael Cohen's legal services. He was the then president's personal attorney at the time. There is no crime. We're going to hear that repeatedly. But I think it's notable that he's.

Going to be in there for deliberations. He will not have Sally not be happy about that because it could go for days. What we are likely also to hear from Todd Blanch, I mean, him saying that the bookings were accurate and there no intent to defraud.

Really the person who, for the prosecution, who has spoken to a, a knowledge of the defraud is Michael Cohen. That is what the prosecution blanch of us. As with Cohen's testimony, they were lies, pure and simple,.

Trying to attack Michael Cohen, the only person who can really testify to or did testify due to the intent of Donald Trump. Well, and that's what is clearly going to be a major part of this. Is Todd Blank just being his closing argument,.

Much shorter than the prosecution is, is attacking the witnesses that the jury did hear from, and also raising questions about the ones that they did not hear from because it won't make the defense look bad necessarily, because the burden of proof.

Is not on them to to convince this jury of Trump's innocence, they don't have to put up any defense at all on the prosecution, obviously, to meet that burden of proof. And so right now he is going after Michael Cohen. That's a surprise to no one.

That is going to be a key staple of Todd Lynch's closing. And they really do think that's one of their most effective arguments. And Blanch is saying that the Michael Cohen had key interactions with Dylan Howard, Keith Schiller and Allen Weisselberg.

You'll notice those are three names that we've heard repeatedly during this trial. They have not shown up at this trial. Dylan Howard worked at the National Enquirer. He has some spine issue and is living in Australia. Keith Schiller, obviously,.

We believe is still in Florida. Someone who also left and partied with Trump on good terms from the white House also wasn't called in this case. And as we know, Allen Weisselberg is in jail. And Allen Weisselberg also got a.

Quite nice severance agreement, $2 million, million dollars in condition that he did not voluntarily cooperate with any investigation. He would have to be compelled by a subpoena. Obviously you can't. It is a remarkable clause.

In a good by contract to give somebody $2 million and say, oh, and by the way, you cannot voluntarily tell the truth in front of a jury unless you are forced into it says a lot. And obviously the jury is not going to hear about that agreement.

That is something that came up earlier on and this and see, there's clients saying those are important. Keith Schiller, Dylan Howard and Allen Weisselberg were not jurors in this, are not witnesses in this trial. Blanch goes on to say in order to convict, jurors.

Would have to determine there were false entries in the paperwork and that Trump had intent to defraud. And of course, this is really at the heart of the case. It is, and it's their strongest argument, the idea that Trump was then the leader of the free world.

He wasn't paying attention to how things were being invoiced. Remember the testimony from the two accountants, Jeff Mcconney, DEP off? They just said they receive his invoices from Michael Cohen. They click the boxes and boom, a check went out.

Now Blanch is saying the invoices were prepared by Cohen. The vouchers were prepared by the Trump Organization employee, Deb Off, and the checks were auto for that. Testimony from the accountants, even though they were called by the prosecutors.

This is their strongest argument. And the danger for Blanch is not diluting this, not getting away from this, because this is the alleged crime. Michael Cohen's credibility also very significant. But he also earlier, at the beginning of his argument,.

He reminded everyone that Trump denies the encounter with Stormy Daniels. I think for a lot of people, that strains credulity. They're also going to argue that this wasn't done to help him win the election. That's not the most important thing. The most important thing is to focus on.

Falsifying business records. And that's what he's doing here. The challenge is, again, not to get too distracted with these other things that don't make or break the case. And the jurors may not believe

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