The lawyers defending Donald Trump in his criminal trial in New York concluded their shift this Tuesday after calling only two witnesses, none of them the former president, who has finally chosen not to testify in his defense. After the turns of the accusation, concluded the day before, and the defense, the presentation of the final arguments will take place next Tuesday, May 28 (there is no session on Monday because Memorial Day, a federal holiday, is celebrated). Judge Juan Merchan has indicated that he hopes that the jury of 12 New Yorkers will be able to begin deliberating next Wednesday.
During more than five weeks of testimony, the Prosecutor’s Office has presented 20 witnesses, the penultimate and most important of them all Michael Cohen, Trump’s former right-hand man and on whose testimony the 34 charges of serious crime against the Republican candidate for the payment are based. of a bribe to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence a sexual relationship. The irregular registration, as “legal expenses” of the reimbursement that Trump made, when he occupied the White House, to Cohen of the $130,000 [unos 120.000 euros] of bribery, is the center of the case. The defense only called two witnesses.
Subject to a gag order by the judge to prevent him from criticizing witnesses and judicial officials, the option of seeing Trump testifying on the stand was a priceless media opportunity, but his team of lawyers advised him not to expose himself ( In the American system, a defendant can avail himself of the right not to testify in order not to incriminate himself). Supported by a court of congressmen and his two eldest children, the former president takes advantage of the daily entrances and exits to the Manhattan criminal courtroom to denounce what he considers an illegitimate trial and political persecution by his Democratic rivals.
The last witness to testify was Robert Costello, once Cohen’s informal legal advisor. Prosecutors tried to portray him as an undercover Trump agent because he tried to prevent Cohen from cooperating with investigators after a 2018 search by federal agents. Prosecutors showed the jury an email in which Costello complained about Cohen’s attitude, because he seemed to be “playing with the most powerful man on the planet.” His statement concluded with him protesting an objection from prosecutors, prompting the judge to clear the courtroom.
The decisive moment, that of the deliberation of the 12 members of the jury, is approaching in time and form: in the estimated period of between six and eight weeks that the trial was scheduled to last, the first criminal trial against a former president of the United States. If found guilty, the Republican could be sentenced to a maximum sentence of four years in prison. To be convicted, the unanimity of the 12 members of the jury is required; If they do not reach a consensus, the trial could be declared null, which would be a great victory for the candidate for re-election in November. Of the four criminal cases against him, the New York case is the only one that will be tried before the election. If Trump is finally convicted, he would not be able to pardon himself if he is re-elected, as this is a state case, not a federal one.
Cohen, portrayed by Trump’s defense as an unrepentant liar capable of also stealing from his own boss, has testified several days in a row in marathon sessions, in which he has explained in detail an agreement between him, Trump and the editor of the tabloid The National Enquirer, David Pecker, to buy and subsequently bury negative stories about the Republican. That plot originated in 2015, a year before the elections in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The payment to Stormy Daniels, ordered according to Cohen by Trump himself, was part of that scheme, described by prosecutors as a criminal plot to interfere and adulterate the outcome of the elections.
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