May23

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Issues for the Trump Jury

Next Tuesday, the opposing sides in Donald Trump's hush-money trial will summarize their arguments for the jury. Then deliberations will begin, Tuesday or Wednesday. Here are the five big moments the jury will have to weigh:

• The Oval Office Meeting: In early 2017, Trump met with Michael Cohen in the White House. Trump then asked Cohen if he needed money. Cohen said he did and Trump told him to see Allen Weisselberg. Cohen did and checks began to arrive. This meeting showed that the checks were not for any legal services Cohen provided. This is a crucial part of the case: The records were falsified and Trump knew all about it.
  
  
• Cohen's theft from Trump: One of the toughest moments for Cohen on the stand was when he admitted that he effectively stole money from Trump. He paid $20,000 of a $50,000 bill owed to a company the Trump Organization had hired, but he requested and got the full $50,000. Thus, he stole money from Trump. Will that impact his credibility with the jury? If the prosecution points out that in criminal cases, many of the witnesses are criminals themselves because criminals tend to consort with other criminals, maybe the jurors will accept that and still believe Cohen.
  
  
• Stormy Daniels: Trump maintains that he never even met Daniels, but rather she extorted $130,000 from him over an event that never took place. Will the jury believe Daniels? There are photos of them together, so his claim that they never met is pretty weak. Also, her detailed testimony revealed things that most porn stars would never think to bring up. In particular, Trump was interested in the business aspects of porn. How much do the women get paid? How much do the men get paid? How much does a finished video sell for? What is the business model for the porn companies? All of this could convince the jury that Daniels would never have thought of this on her own and that her story is true.
  
  
• Hope Hicks: A key issue is whether Trump tried to suppress the story on account of the campaign or to spare Melania Trump some grief. Hicks testified that Trump was concerned about the effect the story would have on his campaign, not about Melania's feelings. This ties cooking the books to the election. To make the conviction a felony, there has to be an underlying crime, and violating election law could be the underlying crime.
  
  
• Pecker: Although his testimony was not directly relevant to the case, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified that he and Trump made a deal in which he would look for damaging stories out there, buy them, not publish them, and then Trump would reimburse him. He was a credible witness. If the jury believes him with respect to the Karen McDougal catch-and-kill story, it will be easy to believe it happened the same way with Daniels.

Juries are funny, and sometimes other items catch their attention more than what the lawyers think are important. We won't know until one of the jurors writes a book. Though they'll probably have to sell it in a plain brown wrapper. (V)