PBP: P01135809 Trump Espionage, Coup, Conspiracy, Racketeering, Fraud & Obstruction Trial Thread

Most of the Lawfare team have said the same. They, of course, are more wonky as well.

 

Couple of quick notes from weekend stuff.

Both Lawfare and Weissmann/McCord gave Blanche a grade of F (maybe D-) in questioning of Costello.
They also both said that Costello was a shit show, and might have hurt the defense more than he helped.
McCord was very complimentary on defense's redirect of Cohen and the questioning of Costello - simple and to the point. Regarding Blanche on Costello, he was all over the place.

The big question is how how believable is Cohen? Weissmann was optimistic that the jury will see that, even though Cohen is a convicted liar, the most important parts of what he said had previously been backed up. Weissmann also indicated that Hicks might be the most important witness.

It should be noted that both Weissmann and McCord have trail experience in big cases, while none of the Lawfare team do, apart from Parloff (not sure about Quinta).

 

As always, from the WaPo live feed

As a reminder, if convicted:

Legal analysts are divided over whether Trump would get jail time if he is convicted. Under New York law, a nonviolent Class E felony carries potential sentences of probation or 1 1/3 to 4 years in state prison.

Some analysts said Trump’s age, 77, and the lack of a prior conviction would probably preclude a jail sentence.

New York attorney Matthew Galluzzo, also a former Manhattan prosecutor, said Trump’s chances of jail would increase substantially if he publicly denigrates the jury or judge and fails to demonstrate contrition for a guilty verdict.

“He risks jail if he loses badly,” Galluzzo said, “and if he disrespects the process as a ‘witch hunt’ and says the judge is biased and that ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ The judge might say, ‘Fine, do 90 days in Rikers and see how you like it.”​

Lawfare has noted that Merchan does not tend to go light on white collar crimes.

 

The gag order may be extending...in Florida.

Donald Trump has been under a limited gag order in his New York case (and violated it multiple times), and now a prosecutor in another criminal case is seeking a court order to limit what the former president can say.

In the Florida classified documents case, several documents were unsealed last week describing prosecutors’ suspicions and shedding more light on how the investigation unfolded in 2022. Trump used those newly public documents to falsely suggest that standard FBI paperwork describing the rules for using deadly force somehow meant agents who searched his home in 2022 had been given special authority to shoot him.

That isn’t accurate. On Friday night, special counsel Jack Smith said such statements endanger FBI agents on the case, and he took the unusual step of asking U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon to impose a new condition of release on Trump: that he not make such misleading accusations again.

While not couched in the language of a gag order, Smith’s request is an extension of the ongoing battles over what Trump says outside court about what’s happening inside court. (In addition to New York, he is also under a limited gag order in the pending D.C. federal case about election obstruction.)

Smith’s new filing may draw Cannon into the legal fray over Trump’s public comments — an issue that, until now, she has not had to confront.​

 

Bragg, Trump, Trump, Jr., Trump, E, and Trump, T are in the house. This is Tiffany's Debutante Courtroom Ball.

 

Timing for closing.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche said his summation, which will be delivered first, will last about 2½ hours. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said his would be as long as 4½ hours. Justice Juan Merchan is going to ask the jury if they want to stay past 4:30 p.m.; if not, closing arguments will spill into Wednesday.​

 

The defense closing begins

Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Todd Blanche began his closing argument to the jury by telling them: “You should want more” than the type of evidence offered by the Manhattan district attorney in the hush money case.

“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof,” Blanche said. “The evidence is all in, and that evidence, as I said to you, should leave you wanting more. You should want more than the testimony of Michael Cohen.”

Blanche said the prosecution case has too many holes, too many inconsistencies, and too many witnesses with credibility problems to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.​

"Innocent"?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

Early on in closing arguments, defense lawyer Todd Blanche sought to focus jurors’ attention to the documents at the heart of the case rather than Donald Trump’s alleged tryst with Stormy Daniels and the attempt to bury her story ahead of the 2016 election.

“This case is about documents. It’s a paper case,” he said.

The core question, Blanche said, was whether the recording of legal expenses in Trump’s personal leger was accurate and whether it was done with an intent to defraud.

Prosecutors allege Trump mischaracterized reimbursements for hush money payments to Daniels as legal expenses rather than campaign expenses, and that he did so to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.

Blanche told jurors this was false.

“The bookings were accurate, and there was absolutely no intent to defraud,” he said.

Beyond that, he said, there was “no conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.”

“The proof there does not add up,” he said.​

The bookings were not accurate. There was writing on the actual checks (paystubs?) that differed from the ledger.

 

Prosecutors have not proved a connection between alleged false documents and former president Donald Trump, in part because two former Trump Organization employees who could have provided evidence were not called to testify, defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued Tuesday.

Instead, jurors are stuck with testimony from Michael Cohen, a former personal attorney for Trump whose testimony was false and who has no credibility, the Trump attorney told the jury.

“You cannot convict President Trump of any crime beyond a reasonable doubt on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche argued.

Allen Weisselberg, who was directly involved in the alleged conspiracy to cover up a 2016 hush money payment, did not testify and is serving a jail sentence for perjury.

Prosecutors also didn’t call another former Trump insider, Keith Schiller, even though his name was repeatedly mentioned in testimony. Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels said Schiller worked as a security guard for Trump and was outside his hotel room during her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

Cohen testified that he called Schiller on the phone while Trump was on the campaign trail in 2016 to update Trump about the Daniels nondisclosure deal.​

Been wondering why Schiller was not called.

 

Donald Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche went hard after Michael Cohen, charging that the witness repeatedly lied to the jury about core issues in the case.

On the witness stand, Cohen said there was never an expectation that he would be paid for a retainer agreement to serve as Trump’s personal lawyer — that the payment arrangement was a smokescreen to reimburse Cohen for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels in 2016.

“That was a lie!” Blanche bellowed, repeating a delivery that he’d used when cross-examining Cohen earlier.​

First, interesting that Blanche is delivering the closing and not Bove (or Necheles). So it should be no surprise that he is going after Cohen. It is personal to both him and Trump. And it is a mistake.

 

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche pointed to a particular email about Donald Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. that he said shows there was not, in fact, a secret scheme to falsify business records.

Blanche said the Trump Organization email, indicating that payments to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had to be approved by Donald Trump’s sons, showed that the prosecution theory of the case doesn’t hold up.

“Guess who else you did not hear from in this trial? Don and Eric,” Blanche said. “Is there some allegation that they are part of this scheme, they are part of this conspiracy?” he added sarcastically.

The lack of testimony from Trump’s sons, and others like former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg, shows that prosecutors have failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, Blanche said.​

Blanche must think the jury is dumb. Most the payments came from Trump's personal account.

 

Donald Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said prosecutors have tried to criminalize basic campaign practices of pushing good news stories and tamping down bad stories.

“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate — a group of people who are working together to help this person win,” Blanche said.

The legal rationale of the Trump indictment is that business records were falsified in furtherance of an illegal scheme to influence the outcome of the election. His defense lawyer has argued that there’s nothing criminal about getting a tabloid editor to kill potentially embarrassing stories about a candidate.​

You mean, such as having an affair with a playboy model while your wife was pregnant? And having an affair with a porn star? And paying them both off? Totally normal.

 

To convict Donald Trump on any of the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, prosecutors have to show that Trump made fake business entries with an “intent to defraud” or commit another crime.

Defense lawyer Todd Blanche tried to chip away at that allegation in his closing argument, saying Trump couldn’t have acted with such intent because he repeatedly disclosed the payments at issue in the case.

Blanche pointed to IRS documents showing Trump had paid his former lawyer Michael Cohen, reimbursing him for paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. Trump characterized it as legal retainer. Prosecutors say it was in fact a campaign expense.

“If there was some deep-rooted intent to defraud, why do you think it was reported to the IRS as exactly what it was, to Michael Cohen as President Trump’s personal attorney?” Blanche asked. “The payments were compensation to him.”

Blanche also brought up a tweet Trump posted in 2018 in which Trump acknowledged reimbursing Cohen. Additionally, Blanche presented a slide of a form submitted to the Office of Government Ethics when Trump was president, showing payment made to Cohen.

“How can it be that there’s an intent to defraud when he discloses it to the IRS, he tweets about it and he submits it in his Office of Government Ethics forms?” Blanche said.​

So a tweet, after the fact, means everything was legal?

 

Donald Trump’s lawyer suggested to the jury Tuesday that the former president would never have repaid his former personal attorney by nearly $300,000 for a hush money payment because Trump was too cautious about his finances.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche pointed to testimony by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, when he said that his first assignment as a Trump lawyer was to argue his way out of paying bills from vendors on Trump’s behalf. Cohen testified that he called those vendors to argue that their services were worth much less and that he sometimes settled with them for a fraction of what was owed.

“All the other evidence you heard was about how carefully [Trump] watches his finances,” Blanche argued.

Prosecutors argue that Trump paid $420,000 to Cohen, which doubled the $130,000 he owed Cohen for paying off adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, as well as another expense Cohen had fronted. That “gross up” was meant to cover any taxes Cohen would owe by reporting the repayment as income.

The payment also included an increase in Cohen’s annual bonus, according to the district attorney.​

 

So far, most of the first hour or more has seemed have been spent on Cohen.

 

Donald Trump’s attorney argued before the morning break began that shutting down Stormy Daniels’s ability to publicly discuss an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade before the 2016 election could not have been election interference because the story itself was published on a gossip website years prior.

“How could this have influenced the election?” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said in his closing argument Tuesday. “People already knew about the allegations. It was already a published story.”​

Dude, the effort to kill the story was in 2016 (2015?), not a decade before.