#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.
#Trump atty Todd #Blanche, during his closing, tried to convince the jury that the prosecution’s case relied entirely on #MichaelCohen. Josh #Steinglass is taking that argument on directly & indirectly. As he moves through the case’s timeline, showing every piece of documentary #evidence the prosecution has, he is reinforcing just how much does not rely on Cohen, but on the testimony of witnesses who are friendly to Trump & on phone records you can’t dispute.
“There’s this crazy flurry of phone activity among the co-conspirators here,” Steinglass points out, & then rattles off the proper names — Michael Cohen to David Pecker, Pecker to Cohen, Cohen to Keith Davidson — to illustrate just how much phone activity there was over just 30 mins.
“This is damning, right?” #Steinglass says, using conversational language as he highlights the records.
He argues that Cohen was getting the final sign-off from Trump before he initiated the sequence of financial transactions that would conclude w/him wiring $130k.
#Steinglass discusses Jan 2017, the month #Trump was inaugurated. He describes a meeting between #MichaelCohen & #AllenWeisselberg who Cohen testified had made the arrangements to reimburse Cohen for the #HushMoney. “Right on the bank statement, Weisselberg & Cohen calculated all the money that was owed to Cohen,” Steinglass says.
#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 is now focused on the“gross-up” of the amount that #MichaelCohen was paid for tax purposes. Legitimate legal fees are not “grossed up.”
Steinglass reminds the jury that #JeffreyMcConney, the fmr controller of the #TrumpOrganization, testified that in 50 yrs he was never aware of a payment being doubled for taxes. He then argues that this gross-up was made because the reimbursement was disguised as income.
#Steinglass acknowledges that nearly every relevant piece of evidence in the trial suggests that #Trump would be reluctant to overpay for anything. But, Steinglass says, “it was worth it” to the newly elected president. “It was worth it to hide the truth about what this money was really for.”
Also you gotta think the #MichaelCohen extra costs were factored into the agreed upon figure to #StormyDaniels.
#Blanche tried to make the fact that #MichaelCohen didn’t remember how much he was owed each month for the reimbursements into a suspicious thing. But #Steinglass says it demonstrates that there was no retainer agreement, & that the knowledge & the math was then in the hands of #Trump’s employees.
#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.
Steinglass shows Trump’s filing w/the federal government’s Office of Government #Ethics in May 2018 that revealed #Trump had made a payment to #MichaelCohen. The filing came days after #RudyGiuliani said on #FoxNews that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the #StormyDaniels payment.
#Steinglass revisits the passages of #Trump’s books which were read to the jury during the trial. Trump described himself as a frugal micromanager who advised always looking at & questioning invoices.
In one excerpt, Trump said that while decorators are generally good people, you should be very careful checking their invoices. “If Donald Trump is checking the invoices for his decorator, you can bet that he’s checking the invoices for #MichaelCohen,” Steinglass says.
#Steinglass is now in hour 5 of his closing (including breaks).
Steinglass is telling the prosecution’s theory w/a strong narrative. Blanche’s didn’t; his version was, everyone’s a liar & out to get #Trump.
Steinglass reviews evidence from spring 2018, when #MichaelCohen was under investigation & beginning to question his loyalty to Trump. He argues that, whatever jurors think of Cohen, “he was the defendant’s fixer, & like all fixers, he knew where the bodies were buried.”
Prosecutors have argued that a lawyer named #RobertCostello was dispatched to keep #MichaelCohen loyal. Costello was the only substantive witness called by the defense, & his appearance was nutso 🦇💩
#Steinglass moves to #MichaelCohen’s guilty plea to federal crimes. When #Hoffinger questioned Cohen about the pleas, she asked if he’d committed #crimes at Trump’s behest. Cohen said that he had.
Steinglass reads portions of that testimony aloud, before pivoting to #Trump’s tweets blasting Cohen right after he pleaded guilty.
Steinglass argues the tweets were a message to other witnesses. “Cooperate, & you will face the wrath of Donald Trump.”
#Steinglass, who had stuck to a chronological timeline, goes back to 2016 to connect #Trump to each element that prosecutors say is a #crime. He argues that David #Pecker corroborated the idea that #MichaelCohen had kept Trump up to date on the #HushMoney payments at every step. Cohen, Steinglass says, “is not some rogue actor here.”
Steinglass talks about the infamous tape of Trump & Micahel Cohen discussing the payment to #KarenMcDougal.
He reviews the evidence from that month that corroborates Cohen’s testimony, including his calls w/Trump.
Steinglass rhetorically asks, “Is this timing just all a coincidence, every single one of these things?” Then says, “Mr. Trump is being kept abreast of every development.”
#Steinglass highlights other key testimony, including #HopeHicks's remarks that it would have been “out of character” for #MichaelCohen to have made that payment out of the kindness of his heart — meaning, without approval from #Trump.
Steinglass is linking Trump to each & every action that prosecutors say led to the #crime, the falsification of 34 business records related to the #HushMoney payment to #StormyDaniels.
#Steinglass makes a specific argument — that #MichaelCohen wasn’t just freelancing, as the #Trump lawyers have suggested repeatedly trying to distance Trump from the events in the case. It’s a microcosm of scenarios we’ve seen over & over w/Trump for decades. #SEC investigators are told that staffers made mistakes, or reporters are told Trump was never really involved in specific controversies & aides actually had.
#Steinglass says that #MichaelCohen just wanted to be reimbursed & had no reason to push for creating false business records. “The defendant was the beneficiary of this entire scheme,” Steinglass says. “He was the one trying to get elected.”