#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.
After 5 wks of testimony, prosecutors & defense attys now present #ClosingArguments aka summations. Closing arguments give each side several hrs to highlight the #evidence that best proves its case. While similar to the opening statements delivered at a trial’s start, closing arguments tend to be more forceful.
When both sides are finished, Judge Juan #Merchan, will instruct the jurors on the #law & how to apply it to the evidence, & they will be sent off to deliberate.
Justice #Merchan cautions the jurors that the lawyers are simply making “arguments for your consideration.” He underscores that their words are not #evidence.
Already, the judge, both in & out of the presence of the jury, is dictating clear lanes. 1st he told the lawyers, then the jurors,that his instructions on the law were the only remarks on the #law that mattered. Merchan will listen to the closing arguments, & may be compelled to weigh in as each side objects to the other’s argument. #Trump
The prosecution alleges that #Trump was present when his employees hatched a plan to falsify the records, & did not stop them from doing so. The prosecution could even argue that Trump, as the boss, effectively approved the plan & thus caused it.
Skop – who has called the supreme court’s overturning of #RoevWade “a victory in the battle but not the end of the #war” – has argued in favor of forcing #rape and #incest#victims as young as nine or 10 to carry #pregnancies to term.
..a bigger issue than whether #Pickton survives is the potential destruction of the #evidence.
“I act as legal counsel for 16 children of nine women who were killed by #RobertPickton,” he said. “It’s in their interest to preserve the evidence seized by the #RCMP on the Pickton farm to allow my clients to prove that Robert Pickton & #DavidPickton caused them to suffer loss.”
4 months after the #FBI raided #MarALago, Trump’s attys discovered 4 docs marked #classified in his personal bedroom.
That revelation was among several cited by US District Judge Beryl Howell in a newly unsealed 2023 opinion that found prosecutors had presented compelling #evidence that #Trump#knowingly stashed #NationalSecurity docs in his home & then tried to conceal them when the #DOJ tried to retrieve them.
#FDIC Chair #MartinGruenberg will resign after an outside report found #evidence of a “misogynistic” & “patriarchal” culture at the #banking regulator. #Gruenberg… announced Mon he would resign once President #Biden appoints & the Senate confirms a successor….
An independent investigation led by an outside law firm found rampant instances of #abusive workplace conduct…, incl’g #SexualHarassment, #stalking & inappropriate supervisor-subordinate relationships….
#Trump has a huge posse today, including #KashPatel; #GerryKassar, a #conservative party leader in NY; #BernieKerik, fmr NYPD commissioner who was imprisoned for tax fraud & false statements; #AlanDershowitz, lawyer who defended Trump during his first impeachment, & #BorisEpshteyn, legal adviser who was #indicted in AZ for attempts to keep Trump in power after the 2020 election.
Justice #Merchan suggests adjourning until tomorrow so prosecution can bring the #CSPAN witness back on video stills #evidence.
Defense: "That's not the way a trial is supposed to work..."
Prosecution says CSPAN will make the witness — #RobertBrowning, who is executive director of archives at the network — available to testify at 9:30 AM tomorrow.
Prosecutor #Steinglass says that “we may be able to short circuit” this process after all. Instead, the prosecution & the defense will agree to allow the exhibit in.
This is the 2nd time in this #TrumpTrial that the defense, under pressure, agreed to let in #evidence, possibly bc they realize that a whole witness appearing just to allow the exhibit in could draw more attention to it.
So to be clear, we will not hear from the #CSPAN witness again. We are continuing w/the prosecutors’ re-direct of #MichaelCohen, who is back on the stand. The photo of #KeithSchiller & #Trump on 24 Oct 2016, which is what the lawyers were arguing about, is immediately entered into #evidence.
Note the jury is never present / privy to these types of arguments. They just hear Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, entering the stills into evidence.
#Blanche, who now has to contend w/the visual #evidence of #Trump w/his bodyguard, #KeithSchiller, on 24 Oct 2016, tries to address it directly. He asks Cohen to again confirm that he told Trump that day that he had arranged to pay #StormyDaniels the #HushMoney.
Cohen says once more that he spoke to both Schiller & Trump.