Closing arguments wrap in NY v. Trump trial as jury awaits instructions

New York prosecutors presented the jury with their closing argument in the case against former President Trump Tuesday, saying the case is "about a conspiracy and a cover-up," and maintained that they have presented "powerful evidence" to convict. 

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He has pleaded not guilty. 

Prosecutors need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified records to conceal a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic performer, in the lead-up to the 2016 election to silence her about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. The former president has maintained his innocence.

New York prosecutor Joshua Steinglass presented the closing arguments for Bragg. Steinglass presented his closing argument for more than five hours. 

Steinglass said Trump’s intent to defraud "could not be any clearer," arguing that it would have been far easier for him to pay Stormy Daniels directly.

Instead, the prosecutor said, he concocted an elaborate scheme and everything he and his cohorts did was "cloaked in lies.""The name of the game was concealment and all roads lead inescapably to the man who benefited the most: the defendant, former President Donald Trump," Steinglass said.

Read the full story by Brooke Singman here.

I really like it when prosecutors end on a crescendo - on a high note that marries logic with passion. This one did not end that way. Actually ended as it should have begun - with the perfunctory stuff like presumption of innocence etc. Juries don't know the difference between great closings and not great ones. This is likely their only trial. He ends with a highly objectionable illustration. Prosecutor ends by asking for 34 guilty verdicts for interfering with an election.

--Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

Prosecution has done a steady, albeit not spectacular job in summation, but is hardly ending on a high note. Being shut down by the court a couple of times and ending on esoteric matters. But we finally know the other law that was violated! A federal law.

— Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

Basically, we have spent 5 hours here so the prosecutors could dizzy the jury into believing there are oceans of evidence. As it washes over the listener hour after hour, you easily miss that there is no evidence of Trump’s participation in a crime. Participation in burying damaging information, sure. But not of a crime that Trump and others aged to commit.

Bragg’s hope is that by bludgeoning the jury with waves and waves of evidence, no one will notice that it is not evidence of crimes — prosecutors figure they fill that void with Cohen’s guilty plea, which Merchan has allowed them to use as if it were admissible evidence against Trump, which it’s not.

-- Andy McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney and FNC contributor

Going late is still a better option for the defense. The worst case scenario was to allow the prosecution to give an hour closing just before they are instructed by the court and sent into deliberations in the morning. Right now, the jury is likely in overload and tired....The government likely went too long for that reason.

Steinglass did score some good points. However, it was the judge more than the evidence or the prosecutor that has made the difference today. Steinglass has been allowed to virtually testify while making repeated improper arguments. Merchan has done little and what he did was too late. As we have seen in prior weeks, he finally sustained objections only after the damage was done. Judge allowed Steinglass to make highly improper arguments and then would offer the judicial equivalent of a tsk, tsk.

-- Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney and FNC contributor 

Presiding Judge Juan Merchan told the prosecution team they have to wrap up their closing arguments for the day by 8 p.m.

The prosecution team began their closing arguments around 2 p.m., meaning they made their case to the jury across a six-hour span. The defense team kicked off their closing arguments just after 9:30 a.m. and wrapped up just ahead of 1 p.m.

"I think their strategy is: throw a lot at the jury, make the closing seem so long, that the jury will start to say, 'well, that closing was so long, they must have had a lot to say they must have proved their case,'" New York attorney Rebecca Rose Woodland said on Fox News of the prosecution's lengthy arguments.

"They seem to be just coming up with nonsense after nonsense and trying to justify some of this extraneous information as evidence in an election interference case. It is not. So I think that you've had a great point, it's just the prosecution really grasping at straws. Again, trying to either confuse the jury or make it appear as if they're very important because they're going on for such a long time. They have so much to say. But what they're saying doesn't have merit," she continued.

New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik sent a letter to New York officials arguing there may have been "misconduct" within the New York Supreme Court system to ensure Judge Juan Merchan presided over the unprecedented NY v. Trump trial. 

"One cannot help but suspect that the ‘random selection’ at work in the assignment of Acting Justice Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to these cases involving prominent Republicans, is in fact not random at all," Stefanik wrote in a letter Tuesday warning of "potential misconduct" sent to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct and the Inspector General of the New York State Unified Court System. The Daily Mail first reported the letter Tuesday. 

Stefanik pointed to how Merchan has overseen a handful of cases involving Trump or his allies, including the NY v. Trump case, the criminal trial against the Trump Organization in 2022 - a case that found the organization guilty of tax fraud - and is set to oversee the upcoming trial of Trump ally Steve Bannon. 

"The simple answer to why Acting Justice Merchan has been assigned to these cases would seem to be that whoever made the assignment intentionally selected Acting Justice Merchan to handle them to increase the chance that Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and Steven Bannon would ultimately be convicted," Stefanik continued in the letter. 

Read the entire article from Emma Colton here.

[It] is stunning some of the objections which are overruled by this judge. Prosecution just accused DJT of threatening witnesses and the objection was overruled. For a judge who labored over whether to allow impeachment witnesses to testify and excluded the FEC expert, he allows allegations of criminality in threatening witnesses?

-- Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

Former President Donald Trump's campaign for the White House slammed President Biden's reelection team for campaigning outside of the NY v. Trump trial Tuesday.

"Their numbers are in the toilet. Kamala Harris is a terrible alternative. And it's all an attempt to try to turn around the Biden campaign," Trump adviser Jason Miller said Tuesday.

The Biden-Harris campaign held a press conference outside the Manhattan courthouse earlier Tuesday, which was headlined by actor Robert De Niro. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were not present for the press conference.

"I hope this new ad campaign reaches outside the bubble to remind supporters of what a danger he is to our lives. This is not a threat. This is our reality. And that's why I've joined the Biden-Harris campaign, because the only way to preserve our freedoms and hold on to our humanity is to vote for Joe Biden for president," De Niro said.

Miller shot back following the presser that De Niro is a "washed up actor," while also pointing out Biden's lacking performances in battleground state polls.

"Joe Biden is losing nationally, he's losing in every single battleground state. And President Trump's numbers continue to rise, the best that Biden can do is roll out a washed up actor. And don't worry, my remarks will be shorter than 'The Irishman.’ I won't make you suffer for three hours, but the best they can do is roll out a washed up actor," Miller said, referring to De Niro's three and a half hour movie "The Irishman." 

Merchan is now allowing the prosecutors to quote from books on how Trump said that you should attack those who attack you. How is this related to the charge of falsified documents hiding an election violation? It does not seem to matter in the courtroom of Judge Juan Merchan.

-- Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney and FNC contributor 

Fox News Channel's Greg Gutfeld said Tuesday that Americans are still "no closer to knowing" what former President Donald Trump "did wrong" as the prosecution continues to make its case in the courtroom to the jury.

"Despite six weeks, 22 witnesses, and tawdry testimony about spankings, America's still no closer to knowing what Donald Trump did wrong, except pay a scummy lawyer who stole $60,000 from him," Gutfeld said during Tuesday's episode of "The Five."

"The ex-president's lawyer, Todd Blanche, arguing that there was no intent to defraud and no conspiracy to influence the 2016 election," Gutfeld continued. "And as for Bragg's star witness, Blanche saying, 'Michael Cohen is the G.L.O.A.T, he's the greatest liar of all time. You cannot send someone to prison based on the words of Michael Cohen.'"

"The judge not happy about that last line, telling jurors to ignore the suggestion that the former president could be sent to prison if convicted," Gutfeld added, further describing the scene in courtroom scene on Tuesday.

Gutfeld said the prosecution was "busy trying to clean up Cohen's theft and lying by saying, 'We didn't pick Michael Cohen, Trump did.'"

Gutfeld's remarks came as the prosecution continued its closing remarks late into the evening on Tuesday.

It seems the defense has all but given up on objecting.  Whether it's because so much has already come in, or their objections get shut down - who knows.  But it sure seems they have lost the resolve to fight with this judge. 

-- Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

Steinglass just said that it is a fact that these were campaign violations. Nothing from the judge and nothing for the defense. This jury has now been told dozens of times that the payments were campaign violations and the Judge is letting that false claim stand uncontradicted.

He literally said that Trump lied in denying that these were campaign contributions because they were in fact such violations. Merchan is treating this all as argument. However, Steinglass is making a statement of law that is contradicted by a wide variety of experts.

-- Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney and FNC contributor 

Now Steinglass is slamming defense with Trump’s public statements publicly and on financial disclosure form that he reimbursed Cohen. How on earth Blanche could open to the jury telling them that Trump did not reimburse Cohen is just baffling. And, naturally, Steinglass is arguing that the only rational reason the defense would mislead the jury on the reimbursement is that they’d otherwise have to admit that the business records are false.

Just a disastrous unforced error. Since it was not a crime to reimburse Cohen for a lawful NDA, there was no reason to deny that Trump had done this.

-- Andy McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney and FNC contributor

Former deputy independent counsel Sol Wisenberg said Tuesday amid closing arguments in NY v. Trump trial that the prosecution must prove former President Donald Trump "intended to violate a federal election law."

"The judge has made it certainly much easier for [the prosecution] with his rulings. Somebody had mentioned earlier, why doesn't the defense object more and, you know, you can alwasy solve that by saying, 'Your honor, I'd like to have a running objection to this argument or libe of testimony.' I'm not sure if that's been done or not, but the real test will come when we find out for sure tomorrow the final decision by the judge on the jury instructions," Wisenberg, a Fox News Contributor, said during an appearance on "Your World."

"What we've been able to glean so far from the transcripts we've seen is that he's going for the most part with the prosecution's theory," Wisenberg added of Judge Juan Merchan. "But keep this in mind, they still have to prove, the government still has to prove, that Donald Trump, forget about everything else ... they've got to prove that he intended to violate a federal election law, whether it be civil or criminal."

Wisenberg, who said he believes there "a million" problems with the trial overall, said he has not seen "any evidence, even from Cohen, that they discussed the federal election code."

Steinglass is now proving another potential “other crime” — tax fraud. He points out that even though the structuring of Cohen’s compensation meant more taxes than necessary would be paid, the judge will instruct you (the jury) that the preparation of false tax docs is a crime even if the state is not shorted out of any money. Theory is that by describing a reimbursement (a nontaxable event) as taxable income in a Form 1099, Trump caused the preparation of false tax documents. That is, alternative theory of “other crime” is that Trump falsified business records to conceal his commission of a tax fraud crime.

-- Andy McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney and FNC contributor

Prosecutor describes yet another "additional crime" without the elements, the code section, the witnesses etc.  It's just a potpourri of other crimes. A buffet of sorts where the jury can choose without even hearing what the elements of those crimes are.

-- Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

The problem is that, under New York law, the defense was forced to go first unlike most jurisdictions. That denied the defense the chance to respond to such sweeping claims. It is huge advantage to the prosecution.

-- Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney and FNC contributor 

Most lawyers would trade children for last argument!

-- Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

Laborious chronology continues with Allen Weisselberg as a central figure but just not a witness in the actual trial.Ordinarily the decision not to call a witness can lead to inferences being drawn against the prosecution but when a defense does put up a case - as it did here - is that presumption voided or is it burden shifting to ask why the defense didn't call him themselves?

-- Trey Gowdy, “Sunday Night in America” host and former federal prosecutor

Fox News host Howard Kurtz took aim at the "selective" measures the prosecution took as it sought to convince the jury of its case against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, insisting that former porn actress Stormy Daniels "lied for a long time" as it relates to her alleged encounter with Trump.

"When it comes to the prosecution, also highly selective," said Kurtz, who hosts Fox News Channel's "MediaBuzz" on Sundays. "Josh Steinglass, the prosecutor [said] they tried to shame Stormy ... he said she never changed her story. That's preposterous. She lied for a long time after getting the $130,000 from Michael Cohen."

Describing the case against Trump as "very thin," Kurtz also took aim at the defense's "selective" measures in trying to make their case to jurors.

"I think the defense absolutely scored some points, but ... Todd Blanche started out by saying Trump and Stormy have repeatedly denied that this took place. That was to please the client, I believe, but obviously Stormy now testifies that the alleged encounter in 2006 very much did happen," Kurtz said.

Kurtz's comments come as the prosecution team continues its closing arguments, which they said could last hours longer.