By MOLLY CRANE-NEWMAN and JOSEPHINE STRATMAN, New York Daily News
Judge Juan Merchan reprimanded Donald Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche for improperly invoking the previous president's impending prison sentence toward the top of the defense's closing argument. the historic hush money trial.
“That's just not allowed. Period,” the judge roared, saying that Blanche, as a former prosecutor and longtime defense attorney, must have known higher.
“I find it hard to imagine that this was in any way an accident.”
Towards the top of his conclusion, Blanche raised the chance that Trump could go to prison.
The judge called Blanche's comment “outrageous” and granted the prosecution's request to instruct the jury to disregard it.
Here are the newest live updates from the courtroom:
Defense attempts to refute a very important piece of evidence
Blanche discussed one in every of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence: a First Republic Bank statement showing a payment from attorney Michael Cohen to the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors imagine the payment was intended to purchase the porn star's silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
The statement includes handwritten notes from Allen Weisselberg, Trump Org's chief financial officer, calculating how much Cohen owes for the transaction and other expenses.
Blanche focused on Cohen's notes on the proper side of the page, which said he was owed $50,000 for payment to a technology company. Cohen admitted during his testimony that he had actually paid $20,000 for the expense.
“The crux of this document is that it contains lies,” Blanche said.
Blanche’s closing words
Blanche sought to undermine the prosecution's months-long case against Trump, attacking Cohen, Daniels and her former lawyer Keith Davidson and asking jurors to query why that they had not heard from other key players, similar to Weisselberg.
Blanche addressed the 34 counts, which included checks, ledger entries and invoices related to Trump's payments to Cohen in 2017, and said Trump had nothing to do with any of them.
He said Trump was busy running the nation when he signed the checks presented to him, the bills were Cohen's work and his company took care of the remaining.
Blanche accused Cohen of lying when he said Trump knew he was paying Daniels. He claimed Trump's eager go-between went rogue within the hopes of winning brownie points with Trump later. He also accused Cohen of lying when he said he had no verbal agreement with Trump to be his personal attorney after he moved into the White House.
Blanche said the jury mustn’t convict Trump simply because the prosecution showed that Trump was very meticulous about his funds: “You cannot convict President Trump because sometimes … [he] “When he checked out the bills, he was sure he knew exactly what was occurring.”
Blanche went into detail about the alleged conspiracy to defraud voters using a “catch-and-kill” system, saying that there was no such conspiracy and that Trump was too “sophisticated” to seriously believe that the stories in the National Enquirer would influence the election.
“Every election campaign on this country is a conspiracy to elect a candidate,” Blanche said, arguing that Trump's actions were routine.
Trump sat sideways, his arm draped over the back of his chair, and seemed to be listening attentively to Blanche's speech.
“You should want and expect greater than the testimony of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said at the beginning of his closing argument, listing other witnesses who had testified against his client, including Daniels and Davidson, whom he subsequently accused of extortion.
“You cannot convict President Trump – you can’t convict President Trump of against the law beyond an inexpensive doubt based on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.
“President Trump is innocent. He has committed no crimes and the prosecution has failed its burden of proof. Period.”
What you should know
After a week-long break, either side will spend the day before the Supreme Court in Manhattan and their final requests to the New Yorkwho will soon return to the jury room to decide the outcome of this historic case.
According to New York State law, Trump's side presents its summary first, which the Republican frontrunner branded as a conspiracy in a series of Memorial Day Truth social posts.
After the jury hears closing arguments from both sides, Merchan will brief them on the legal situation and explain how they should deliberate the case.
Trump entered the courtroom at 9:25 a.m. – for the first time. He was accompanied by his two older sons, Eric and Don Jr., his youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, an army of lawyers, and various allies and campaign staff. District Attorney Alvin Bragg was also present in the courtroom.
“We have a judge who has a conflict of interest,” Trump said outside the courtroom, possibly violating his news gag order. “You know what the conflict of interest is, and so do I, but I can't say because I'm under a news gag order, which can be unconstitutional.”
Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business recordseach in connection with his alleged reimbursement to Cohen for paying Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election – was recorded in the books as payment of legal fees, not as repayment of hush money.
The prosecution claims that the payments crowned a scheme first developed by Trump, Cohen and former tabloid publisher David Pecker in August 2015 at Trump Tower to hide information from voters that could affect Trump's chances.
Pecker was the primary of 20 witnesses to testify for the prosecution through the months-long trial during which he testified that he had agreed to the “eyes and ears“By identifying negative stories that would harm his electoral prospects in an effort to buy into and undermine them by spreading positive stories about Trump and targeting his competitors.
The Defense called two witnessesa paralegal and veteran New York criminal defense attorney Bob Costello, who accused Cohen of lying when he claimed Trump knew he paid Daniels. On cross-examination, prosecutors tried to prove that the lawyer and longtime associate of Rudy Giuliani was a part of a pressure campaign to maintain Cohen from betraying Trump.
The charges against Trump carry a jail sentence of as much as 4 years or probation and This is the primary indictment against a US president.As the likely Republican presidential candidate on this yr's election, he faces the danger of becoming the primary person within the country to be convicted of against the law.
Check back later for updates from the courtroom.
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