Prosecution: Trump must have known about hush-money scheme
With Kayla Epstein, Madeline Halpert and Nada Tawfik reporting from court in New York
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With Kayla Epstein, Madeline Halpert and Nada Tawfik reporting from court in New York
Live Reporting
Edited by Brandon Livesay and Tiffany Wertheimer
All times stated are UK
Steinglass jokes he won't go through a year of financial records
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, in a moment of levity, promises the jury he is not going to go through an entire year of invoices, cheques, and ledger entries.
After all, they've seen these a few times now.
He follows one month's paper trail, however, to hammer home his argument.
Trump must have known about hush-money scheme, prosecutor claims
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
Joshua Steinglass continues to attack the Trump team's argument that the $35,000 payments to Michael Cohen were for legal work.
He shows an ethics form in which Trump lists the reimbursements to Cohen on his yearly expenses.
He lists the amount to be reimbursed - between $100,000 to $200,000 - and not the amount he actually paid Cohen for income, which was more than $300,000.
Steinglass also shows the court a tweet from Trump in which he himself says Cohen paid the Stormy Daniels non-disclosure agreement "through reimbursement".
Defence lawyer Todd Blanche earlier today tried to distance Trump from direct involvement, noting he frequently signs cheques while he is multi-tasking.
Steinglass asks jurors: What are the odds that Trump would be going through his bills each month and not notice $35,000 payments to Cohen?
“Despite his frugality and his attention to detail, the defendant didn’t ask any questions, because he already knew the answers,” Steinglass say
“He’s in charge of the company for 40 years. The defendant’s entire business philosophy is and was to be involved in everything.”
Prosecution targets 'legal work' defence
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Joshua Steinglass is going over the allegedly false invoices, cheques, and ledger entries that form the basis for each of the 34 felony charges in the case.
We've seen these all before, a few times, but now Steinglass is narrating how they were all part of an alleged plan to bury the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.
The prosecutor continues to hit back at Trump lawyer Todd Blanche's argument that these were just normal payments to Michael Cohen for legal work.
He notes that payments to Cohen stopped that year, even though he continued to be Trump's personal attorney into part of 2018.
And he didn't do enough work in 2017 for a $35,000 payment each month to make sense, Steinglass argues.
"Cohen spent more time being cross-examined in this trial" than on legal work for Trump in 2017, he says.
Trump children focused on closing (and sometimes their phones)
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
Donald Trump and his three children in the audience - Tiffany, Don Jr and Eric - have their eyes fixated on the screens as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass shows the business records he alleges have been falsified.
But Trump's children do seem to grow tired at some points, shifting in their seats and staring down at their phones.
About 50 minutes ago, Trump shared one all-caps word on his Truth Social account: "BORING!"
Prosecution now focuses on alleged tax violations
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
Joshua Steinglass is elaborating on how Donald Trump allegedly violated tax laws by falsifying business records.
When former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg allegedly created a plan for Michael Cohen to be reimbursed for hush-money payments through income, this meant he was paying taxes on reimbursements that he normally wouldn’t.
In other words: “The result of this improper accounting is that taxes were paid that weren’t owed,” Steinglass tells the court.
Even though more taxes were paid than should have been, it’s still a crime to prepare fraudulent tax documents, Steinglass says.
Prosecutor points to 'damning' bank receipt
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Prosecutor Steinglass once again displays one of his most important pieces of evidence for his case: the bank statement on which ex-Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg scrawled out the reimbursement plan to Michael Cohen.
Earlier, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche argued that Cohen was being paid for actual legal services.
But this handwritten note, which appears on a bank receipt for a $130,000 transfer to Stormy Daniels' lawyer, "just completely blows that out of the court," Steinglass says.
Steinglass argues that the fact that Cohen's payment was also "grossed up" for taxes, and, combined with a reimbursement for an unrelated payment to a tech company, resulted in a $420,000 reimbursement for Cohen, made any other explanations moot.
He asks: "Is there anything you learned about Donald Trump that would make you think he'd pay twice what he owes someone?"
"These documents are so damning that you almost have to laugh" at Blanche's assertion it wasn't evidence of fraud, he argues.
Prosecutor might have taken too long to make big point - expert
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from New York
The evidence we just heard is the “smoking gun” of the case, Joshua Steinglass tells the court.
He is referring to the repayment plan allegedly devised in a meeting between Donald Trump, Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen which my colleague Kayla Epstein just wrote about here.
Steinglass is also referring to a document which had Weisselberg's handwritten notes on the bottom, which allegedly outlined Cohen's reimbursements (you can see it below).
But it took nearly four hours to get to this key testimony.
That’s too long, according to former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.
“There's a real risk they lose the jurors. Lawyers love to talk, but less is more in a case like this,” he tells me.
Rahmani says Steinglass should continue to focus on the false business records.
“The more the state tries to defend Cohen and Daniels in a case that isn’t about the affair, the more the prosecution finds itself on defence instead of offence,” he says.
Prosecution now into heart of case
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass has now arrived at the heart of the case - the allegedly false business records and one of the most important pieces of testimony.
After Michael Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels, Steinglass claims Trump had to conceal the alleged conspiracy. He also had to pay Cohen back.
Steingass then reviews Cohen's testimony about a conversation with Trump and Allen Weisselberg - who is the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization - which took place in Trump's office.
Weisselberg allegedly gave a rundown of the plan to pay Cohen back in installments and to categorise the payments as legal expenses.
Cohen on the stand uttered three very important words about Trump: "He approved it."
Is it normal for closing arguments to take this long?
Kayla Epstein & Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
Today's summations are notable not for the knockout punches or unexpected surprises, but their length.
Closing arguments from the prosecution's Joshua Steinglass will take the session well into the evening
It's just after 17:00 local time, and Steinglass might have hours to go until he is finished (according to his earlier estimate).
We asked some legal experts if this is normal. At least one says, not really.
"It is unusual for a defendant’s closing argument to go nearly three hours and also unusual for the prosecution to go 4.5 hours," says Mitchell Epner, a white collar lawyer in New York.
He believes that while the defence may have lost the jury at points, "the prosecution is telling a coherent story, so it is less likely to lose the attention of the jury".
"But," he adds "It is exhausting to listen closely for this long."
Former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman told us when summations get into the fourth and fifth hour, you are "likely going to start to lose jurors".
"This is particularly true when the most significant parts of the summation are towards the end when the jurors can barely stay awake," Rendelman says.
Prosecution takes deep dive into their case
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
My colleague Madeline Halpert reported earlier that prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is getting into the weeds.
We're still there.
Steinglass seems to be going over every piece of evidence that the prosecution introduced over the course of the five-week trial that corroborates their version of events.
We see the texts and calls from all the key players: lawyer Michael Cohen; Keith Davidson, a lawyer for Stormy Daniels; ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
The prosecution is trying to show evidence of a conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election, and also back up everything they're alleging occurred in the frantic weeks before voters went to the polls.
But nearly three hours into Steinglass' closing arguments, we've only reached events from October of 2016.
The actual alleged crimes occurred in 2017.
All this information might be burying key facts from this timeline for the jury, like the time Cohen testified he called Trump just before opening a bogus bank account to funnel money to Daniels.
In Steinglass' flurry of details, that crucial piece just came up but was quickly lost in the mountain of evidence.
"I hope you're getting all this," he jokes to jurors.
Jury to stay late to hear the rest of closing arguments
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
Justice Merchan tells the court we're going to try to finish out closing arguments today.
He says jurors still seem alert and are eager to get through the arguments.
They've made childcare and other arrangements, the judge says.
Usually court wraps up at 16:30 local time (21:30 BST).
Jury attentive despite long day
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
It’s been a long day for the 18 jurors (which includes the six alternates) sitting on the benches to the right of the lawyers.
But unlike some of the reporters and members of public here today, they don’t seem to mind the long hours.
They look attentive as they watch Joshua Steinglass show evidence on the screen and sum up many bits of evidence that they’ve already heard before.
They could be here as late as 20:00 local time - much later than usual - if Steinglass was accurate in his estimations of how long he would take with his closing arguments.
New courtroom sketch shows Trump watching prosecutor
As closing arguments continue, another courtroom sketch from today has just dropped.
This image shows prosecutor Joshua Steinglass standing at the podium to present his final argument to the jury.
A seated Donald Trump and his lawyer Todd Blanche appear to be listening intently from the defence table, while Justice Juan Merchan seems to glance at Blanche and Trump.
'Can’t understand the case without appreciating the climate', prosecutor says
Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court
We've been rather in the weeds here for the past 10 minutes, going over the fallout from the Access Hollywood tape.
But Steinglass is explaining to jurors why he's taking so much time to explain these events.
"You really can’t understand the case without appreciating the climate that was taking place," he says.
Prosecutors argue that Trump was desperate to pay Stormy Daniels to stay quiet, and kill the story, because his campaign had already been damaged by the Access Hollywood tape.
Access Hollywood tape caused campaign to shift from denial to spin, prosecutor says
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Joshua Steinglass is trying to dispel any notion that the Access Hollywood tape was not, as defence lawyer Todd Blanche claimed, a "doomsday" events.
Steinglass claims Trump's campaign shifted from denial to spin, while they panicking behind the scenes.
We see more emails and texts from key players in this saga, as well as Trump's video statement trying to convince voters that there was a gulf between his words in the video and his actions as a candidate.
The scene outside court
Some pictures have just arrived in our newsroom showing these self-described shamans performing a ceremony to bless Donald Trump outside the courtroom.
You may recognise their outfits - they're dressed like one of the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Jacob Angeli Chansley became one of the most recognisable figures from the siege after being pictured wearing horns and a bearskin headdress, with a US flag painted on his face. He referred to himself as "the QAnon Shaman" and was sentenced to 41 months in prison for his involvement.
And we're back
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Joshua Steinglass is resuming where we left off, talking about the infamous Access Hollywood recording and the fallout from it.
Prosecutor brings up recorded call between Cohen and Trump
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Before the break, Joshua Steinglass was revisiting a recording that Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, tried to call into question earlier.
It captured Michael Cohen talking to Trump about what prosecutors allege was the pay-out to Karen McDougal.
Blanche had sought to claim the recording actually captured the two discussing purchasing materials about Trump from the publisher's archives. But Steinglass said there's no doubt they were talking about the pay-out.
The audio captures Trump saying "150", as in the $150,000 pay-out to McDougal, Steinglass said.
He encouraged the jurors to listen to the tape as much as they want.
Court takes a short break
Court has paused for a break. Before that happened, we heard the prosecutor say he was a third of the way through his closing arguments. The news caused some audible groans in the overflow courtroom where members of the public sit.
So there's plenty of court still to come.
Stick with us.
Did a secret meeting make a difference in Trump's 2016 election?
Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass might be oversimplifying when he says the Stormy Daniels hush-money agreement "could very well be what got President Trump elected".
There are a key factors that many journalists and pollsters point to in retrospect: a rising wave of populism, a racially motivated backlash against Barack Obama's presidency, widening economic inequality, a failure by Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign to engage in key swing states that decided the election - the list goes on ad nauseam.
One thing you don't usually see mentioned in all those takes is a 2015 covert meeting in Trump Tower between Trump, David Pecker and Michael Cohen about their so-called "catch-and-kill" scheme.
Critics have argued the case might not rise to the level of prosecuting a former US president who is currently running to take office again.
So Steinglass is trying to hammer home to the jury the gravity of the alleged conspiracy by claiming it had a major effect on Trump's 2016 election to the White House.