NEW YORK, United States: Donald Trump engaged in a “conspiracy and cover-up” to hide from voters that he paid a porn star for bribes, prosecutors told a jury Tuesday in closing arguments in the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president.
Less than six months before an election in which Trump is seeking to return to the White House, the stakes for the verdict are high – both for the 77-year-old personally and for the country.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, fearing that her disclosure of an alleged sexual encounter could destroy his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass delivered a summary of the indictment after Trump’s defence attorney, Todd Blanche, called for his acquittal, insisting that the case against the former president was based on lies.
Steinglass said the motive for the alleged crime was Daniels’ story about her 2006 tryst with a married Trump, but “the case is at its core about conspiracy and cover-up” on the eve of the election.
“The People presented strong evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” he said.
Blanche told the jury that Trump was “not guilty.” The only result should be “a very quick and easy not guilty verdict”.
Cohen, a former Trump fixer who became the prosecution’s star witness, was motivated by “straight-up hatred” for his former boss, Blanche said.
“He told you a number of things on the witness stand that were lies, plain and simple,” he said.
Blanche said Trump was busy “running the country” when Cohen was reimbursed and did not thoroughly review all the invoices that came across his desk.
“There was no intent to defraud and beyond that there was no conspiracy to influence the 2016 election,” Blanche said.
But Steinglass countered that there was a mountain of corroborating evidence in addition to Cohen’s testimony.
“They want to make this case about Michael Cohen,” he said. “This case is about Donald Trump and whether he should be liable for causing false entries in his own business records and whether he did it to cover up his own election violations.”
Speaking to reporters before entering the courtroom in Manhattan, Trump called the day “a very dangerous day for America.”
“We have a rigged court case that should never have been started,” he said as three of his five children – Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany – stood behind him.
The 12 anonymous jurors were supposed to start their deliberations on Wednesday.
Polls show Trump neck-and-neck against President Joe Biden, and the verdict will add new tension to the White House race.
Returning a verdict of guilty or not guilty requires the jury to be unanimous. Just one holdout means a hung jury and a mistrial, though prosecutors could seek a new trial.
