Trump hush money trial: Defense rests without Donald Trump taking the stand

NEW YORK (AP) – Donald Trump silent money trial entered a new phase on Tuesday, approaching the moment when a jury will begin deciding his fate after testimony ends without the former president speaking in his own defense.

“Your honor, the defense rests,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Trump’s team ended with a former federal prosecutor who was called to question the credibility of a key prosecution witness, one of two people called for questioning by the defense. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before remanding the case on Monday.

The jury was sent home for a week until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but lawyers returned to the courtroom to discuss how the judge will instruct jurors before deliberations, a sort of action plan to help them apply the right to evidence and testimony. The two sides haggled over word choices, legal phrases and how to describe various campaign issues.

Trump, the first former US president to be tried criminally, did not answer questions about why he did not testify.

Trump had previously said he wanted to act as a witness in his own defense, but there was no requirement or even expectation to do so. Defendants routinely refuse to testify. Instead of intensifying their efforts to prove Trump’s innocence to jurors, his lawyers focused on attacking the credibility of prosecution witnesses. This is a routine defense strategy; the burden of proof in a criminal case rests with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove anything.

But even as Trump condemns the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he is working to make the proceedings an offshoot of his own presidential campaign. He used the trial to raise funds, took his time on camera to criticize President Joe Biden and presented a parade of his own own political supporters.

Prosecutors have charged the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee with conspiring to collect and conceal negative stories in an illegal attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records to conceal the alleged scheme and has denied any wrongdoing. This is the first of Four of Trump’s criminal cases will go to trialand perhaps the only one before the 2024 presidential elections.

“They have no case,” Trump told the court. “There is no crime.”

He also attacked the prosecutor again, despite repeated warnings from Judge Juan M. Merchan not to violate an order of silence that prohibits him from speaking publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and the judge’s family.

The jurors learned a lesson at the bottom of the tabloid business world where Trump’s National Enquirer allies took off a plan to keep dubious, sometimes outrageous stories about Trump from the public by paying tens of thousands of dollars to “catch and kill” them. They watched as a porn actress, Stormy Daniels told in disturbing detail alleged sexual encounter with Trump in a hotel room. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.

And they sat attentively on the jury, as Trump’s jury former lawyer turned enemy Michel Cohen placed Trump at the center of a scheme to buy Daniels’ story to prevent it from being made public in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, Republicans were wringing their hands in despair over the potential political consequences from the famous tape “Access Hollywood”.in which Trump bragged about grabbing women for sex without asking for permission.

But the crux of the prosecution’s case is not about the spectacle but about business transactions, including internal Trump Organization documents that label payments to Cohen as legal expenses. Prosecutors argued that the payments were actually repayments to Cohen, in pieces, for the $130,000 he made on Trump’s behalf to silence Daniels.

Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. This offense is considered the lowest level in New York State and is punishable by up to four years in prison, although there is no guarantee that a conviction will result in prison time.

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., defended his father’s decision not to testify.

“There would be absolutely no reason, no justification to do this. Everyone thinks it’s fiction,” the younger Trump said as he left a news conference with the former president’s supporters outside the courthouse.

The judge must still rule on the defense’s request to drop the charges before jurors even begin deliberating, based on the argument that prosecutors failed to prove their case. Such far-sighted conclusions are often made in criminal cases but are rarely upheld.

The last witness was Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor who was first called Monday afternoon and who angered the judge rolls his eyes and says under his breath. The judge cleared the courtroom and threatened to remove Costello unless he showed more respect.

There wasn’t the same drama in Tuesday’s testimony, as Trump’s lawyers tried to use Costello to undermine Cohen’s credibility. They had a professional relationship that fell apart spectacularly. Costello offered to represent Cohen shortly after the raid on the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home and when Cohen faced a decision whether to remain defiant in the face of the investigation or cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.

Costello bristled, assuring prosecutors that he held no hostility toward Cohen and was not trying to intimidate him. “Ridiculous. No,” he told the latter.

However, Costello repeatedly questioned Cohen’s credibility and he was even a witness before last year’s grand jury that indicted Trump with testimony aimed at undermining Cohen’s account. Last week, in an interview with Fox News Channel, Costello accused Cohen of lying to the jury and using the case to “make money.”

Prosecutors sought to show that Costello was engaged in a pressure campaign to manipulate Cohen and twist his arms to keep him close to Trump as he came under federal investigation. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Costello about a 2018 email in which he assured Cohen that he was “loved” by the Trump camp, “they are on our side” and “you have friends in high places.”

When asked who these “friends in high places” were, Costello replied that he was talking about Trump, then president.

Trump’s lawyer, Emil Bove, tried to change this image.

“Did you ever put pressure on Michael Cohen to do anything?” Bove asked.

“No,” Costello replied.

After the defense rested, the judge dismissed the jury and decided on closing arguments – the last time the jury would hear from either side. Deliberations could start as early as next Wednesday, giving the panel a first chance to discuss the matter. Until then, they are not allowed to talk about it.

“See you next week,” Merchan told the jury.

___

Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Michelle Price in New York; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.