“This is not a referendum on your ideas about Donald Trump,” launched, after three hours of pleading, the lawyer for the Republican presidential candidate, Todd Blanche, in the New York court.
Defense and prosecution engage in a final showdown Tuesday at Donald Trump’s trial in New York, the last act before the 12 jurors retire to decide on a historic verdict, with considerable stakes in the middle of the presidential campaign. After six weeks of debates, dominated by stories of sex, money and politics, the jury will meet behind closed doors, perhaps as early as Wednesday.
With a question: was the former President of the United States, who aspires to return to the White House, guilty of 34 falsifications of accounting documents, intended to hide a payment of 130,000 dollars to the actress of X-rated films Stormy Daniels aiming to avoid a sex scandal at the very end of her 2016 presidential campaign?
For the prosecution, this payment is a hidden campaign expense and it was used by Donald Trump to “to bribe” the election won by the wire against Hillary Clinton. “The heart of this matter is a conspiracy and a cover-up”, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass insisted on Tuesday at the start of his indictment. The money was used to buy the actress’s silence about a sexual relationship she claims to have had in 2006 with the Republican billionaire, an episode denied by Donald Trump and which she spoke at length during the trial, speaking about ‘an act “consent” but where the “balance of power” was unbalanced.
“Referendum”
The Stormy Daniels Story “is tortuous, it makes people uncomfortable. It is this unpacking in front of the American people that the accused wanted to avoid., assured Mr. Steinglass. But for Donald Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, “there was no intention to defraud and no conspiracy to influence” voting. And the payment to Stormy Daniels was only the result of “extortion” of the Republican candidate.
After a three-hour argument, the lawyer warned the jurors against any temptation to make their verdict a “referendum” for or against Donald Trump. “If you stick” to the evidence, “It’s a not guilty verdict, quickly done, well done”he added.
If he is found guilty, the Republican presidential candidate, 77, will be able to appeal and, in any case, run in the November 5 election. But with the considerable weight of a criminal conviction, while his duel with Joe Biden, 81, promises to be close. The stakes are all the more important as this trial will probably be the only one to take place before the presidential election, among the four cases in which Donald Trump is charged.
“Dangerous day”
Arriving at Manhattan court on Tuesday, Donald Trump spoke of a “dangerous day for America”, once again presenting himself as a victim of political prosecution. Three of his children came to support him, Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jr. At the foot of the judicial building, the famous actor Robert De Niro, a notorious anti-Trump, came to warn against a “clown” which could become a “tyrant”.
During its argument, the defense targeted the prosecution’s key witness, the former confidant turned Donald Trump’s sworn enemy, Michael Cohen. It was he who paid Stormy Daniels at the very end of the 2016 campaign. Once Donald Trump was in the White House, in 2017, Michael Cohen was reimbursed with the help, according to the accusation, of false invoices and entries disguised as “legal costs” in the accounts of the Trump Organization, hence the prosecution for accounting falsifications.
But Michael Cohen, “he is the greatest liar of all time (…) a champion of lies”, assured Todd Blanche, recalling that the witness was convicted of perjury before the American Congress and that he is now marketing his fight against Donald Trump, with his podcast. For the lawyer, Donald Trump, then “leader of the free world”had bigger things to worry about when he was in the White House than overseeing every single expense.
The prosecutor, during his indictment, on the contrary assured that there was a well-oiled plan, decided before the campaign, between Michael Cohen, Donald Trump and a former tabloid boss, friend of the billionaire, to make any embarrassing revelation disappear. , even if it means taking out the checkbook. Here again, nothing reprehensible, assured Donald Trump’s lawyer: “A campaign is designed to amplify the positive aspects of a candidate. It’s a campaign, not a crime.”. The defense only needs to convince one juror not to convict Donald Trump because the jury must make its decision unanimously.