Trump And Unlawful Means

Closing arguments in the Trump Criminal Trial

Today were the closing arguments in the Trump Criminal Trial in Manhattan. The defense went first, and Todd Blanche argued his case for about 3 plus hours. According to the NY Times, his words were circuitous, and non-linear, and involved a lot of use of the words liar and Cohen. Blanche’s case is that Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, is a liar and a cheat and that the prosecution’s case rests solely on Cohen— and he cannot be believed so the prosecution cannot be believed. They have no case.

After lunch, the prosecution began what the attorney Joshua Steinglass predicted would be a 4.5 hour argument. He went into great detail with deliberate narrative structure all the evidence (most of it) that the jury has heard: Trump was a micro-managing penny pincher and would have known about the payments. And he paid off the porn star to keep her quiet, and help himself get elected President. Steinglass reiterated to the jury that their evidence is not just from Michael Cohen, but from a paper trail and other witnesses.

They are still at it, Steinglass probably has another hour to go.

One thing that the defense said that I thought might really shoot them in the foot was that Blanche tried to minimize the Access Hollywood Tape’s effect on the Trump campaign in 2016, making it seem like it was just another day, another snag, in the day of a campaign. If any of the jury had been there for that time (and they all were), they know it was not just another day. It was a bombshell and we all thought Trump was going to go down. Even his campaign thought that. Jurors might have been insulted by the insinuation of that.

In fact that tape set in motion the paying off of Stomy Daniels. The coverup so that voters in that election would not know who Donald Trump really is.

I wish I were at the courthouse to hear these arguments. Tomorrow will be Judge Merchan’s charge to the jury, and I will try to distill what I read.

All of the speech balloons above were quotes from NY Times reporters in the room.

Here are some sketches of some of the lawyers that I did from memory. I drew them this evening on our subscriber zoom.