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.
When things finally get under way, Justice #Merchan will describe the #legal meaning of the word “#intent” & the concept of the presumption of innocence. He will remind the #jurors that they pledged to set any biases aside against #Trump before they were sworn in, & that Trump’s decision not to testify cannot be held against him.
Then, Justice Merchan will explain the 34 charges of falsifying business records. It will be the most important guidance that he gives during this #TrumpTrial.
Justice #Merchan reminds the #jurors they need to “set aside” personal opinions or bias against #Trump.
He reads standard #legal language on #fairness, one phrase: “As a juror, you are asked to make a very important decision about another member of the community.”
An unintentional reminder that this is #CitizenTrump — just “another member of the community.”
Prosecution argued all of the records were related to reimbursements to #MichaelCohen for the #HushMoney. Defense argues they were for legal services, an argument #Trump has contradicted before in #legal filings & elsewhere.
#Merchan gets to the 34th count — a check dated Dec. 5, 2017. He repeats the definition of falsifying business records, giving jurors a chance to process the complex charges, where each single count includes within it at least 2 other potential crimes.
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Prosecutor Steinglass says phone records show 6 calls bw Michael Cohen & Weisselberg over three years, two of which were in late Oct 2016 — right before the Stormy Daniels deal was reached.
This appears to be the first time the calls have been mentioned in the case.
Steinglass says #Trump and Cohen spoke twice on the morning of Oct. 26, 2016 — right before Cohen went to First Republic to submit paperwork to open his new account to send the wire transfer. #TrumpTrial#legal
Btw, I am reading live posts of the #TrumpTrial but unable to post for you (sorry). Prosecution is killing it.
FYI: Via Kyle Griffin:
Judge Merchan tells the jury that Trump lawyer Todd Blanche's comment was "improper, and you must disregard it."
"If there is a verdict of guilty, it will be up to me to impose a sentence." He adds: A "prison sentence is not required in the event of a guilty verdict." #legal#Trump
Before the lawyers depart, Judge Merchan strongly tells Blanche that he doesn’t think it was an accident when Blanche told jury that the jury should think twice before “sending a man to prison.”
Merchan to Blanche: Your statement was “outrageous” & “highly inappropriate.”
Merchan’s tone was tempered but you could tell he was angry w Blanche. Merchan noted that Blanche’s experience as a federal prosecutor suggests that this was no accident on his part #TrumpTrial#Trump#legal
JUST IN: Judge #CANNON has denied #JackSmith's gag order request in FL, saying prosecutors' failure to confer with defense before filing it was "wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy." #TrumpIndictment#documents#legal
#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.
#Blanche is focusing on the 34 docs that led to the 34 #felony charges. He sounded as if he was getting close to making a #legal argument about “intent to defraud.” The #jurors would have to find that #Trump acted w/ #intent to #defraud when he directed the falsification of the docs in order to find him #guilty.
Justice #Merchan appeared to glare at Blanche as he came close to commenting on the #law. But the defense lawyer moved away & the judge said nothing.
#Blanche talks about the first batch of docs: 11 invoices that were sent by #MichaelCohen. The invoices said that Cohen required payment for #legal services, but Cohen testified at trial that he was directed to say that by the #TrumpOrganization. Prosecutors say #Trump himself initiated the false documents.
Todd #Blanche argues that the documents weren’t false because #MichaelCohen really was doing #legal work for #Trump in 2017. He’s casting aspersions on the government’s theory of Cohen being repaid for his payment to #StormyDaniels, saying that if that were so, Cohen would have been doing unremunerated legal work.
Blanche’s voice rises as he again insists Cohen lied in his description of the work he was doing for Trump.
#Blanche key themes:
the documents —referring to this as a “paper case.”
Distance from it —#Trump, saying the leader of the free world had nothing to do w/the way documents were classified at the #TrumpOrganization.
Attack #MichaelCohen as a liar who was too greedy to do #legal work for free.
“What makes more sense?” Blanche asks now, asking whether the prosecutors’ allegations are more logical than the simple idea that Trump agreed to pay Cohen for legal work.
#Blanche argues that the 12 ledger entries at issue in the case were classified as #legal services because the #TrumpOrganization's software used a dropdown menu in which one of the limited options provided is: “legal expense.”
Needless to say, the dropdown menu does not have a “repayment for hush-money deal” option.
That Cohen did actual legal work for #Trump around when he received the payments from Trump has always been one of the defense’s strongest arguments.
#Blanche says that #Trump wasn’t known for overpaying, & testimony suggested #MichaelCohen didn’t deserve to be paid much for his campaign work, particularly #HopeHicks's testimony that Cohen occasionally went “rogue”.
Blanche: “That’s not exactly a glowing performance evaluation that justifies a larger bonus.”
At the same time, Blanche argues the $420k Trump did pay Cohen was for unspecified #legal work.
#Steinglass highlights #MichaelCohen’s testimony implicating #Trump in the charged #crimes. He shows jurors, using highlighted transcript pages, Cohen’s testimony that Trump not only approved the arrangement but was aware that the reimbursements would be classified as payments for #legal services.
#Steinglass addresses Blanche’s earlier point that #MichaelCohen did other #legal work for #Trump in 2017. He argues that Cohen did <10 hrs of legal work that year & says Cohen spent more time being cross-examined during this trial than he spent doing legal work in 2017.
Steinglass argues that, if the defense's arguments that Cohen was being paid for legal services held up, Trump would have ended up paying Cohen at a rate that would have added up to >$100M annually.
#Steinglass notes that #Trump himself has, several times in several places, “admitted” that the payments to #MichaelCohen were reimbursements, not payments for #legal services. This might not be a devastating argument for the defense if they’d proposed an alternative theory of the case. But instead they argued the $420k sent to Cohen was in fact a payment for legal services, so these admissions from Trump himself are not good for him.
Apropos of nothing, I'm heartened by the degree to which huge swaths of communities I'm attached to (thinking #lawfedi / #legal, #technology, #policy, #podcast, etc.) have seemingly rejected the siren call of going all-in on #Threads as a Twitter/X replacement.
I know many have been sailing under their own flag for quite some time, but we're hurdling towards two years and it feels like something that can persist.
In closing arguments Tues, Trump’s lawyers are expected to cast #AllenWeisselberg as the prosecution’s missing piece, an elusive central player…. They will likely try to argue to the #jury that the case depends on #MichaelCohen, whose testimony provided the only evidence that #Trump had direct knowledge of the plot to disguise the #HushMoney reimbursement as #legal fees
Hmm, when did California lose it and start using plastic bags again at grocery stores? The pandemic? For awhile there I thought everyone was using (at the very least) beefier recycled plastic bags instead of throwaway plastic, but apparently someone lobbied someone so people are just buying more disposable plastic bags (at 10 cents a shot) in my neighborhood. 😢
(Nope... I do not go to the grocery store much, LOL).
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