Trump prosecutor focuses on 'cover-up' in closing arguments while defense attacks key witness - 2024-05-29

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump engaged in "a conspiracy and a cover-up," a prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments Tuesday in the former president's hush money trial, while a defense lawyer branded the star witness as the "greatest liar of all time" and pressed the panel for an across-the-board acquittal.

The lawyers' dueling accounts, wildly divergent in their assessments of witness credibility and the strength of evidence, offered both sides one final chance to score points with the jury before it starts deliberating the first felony case against a former American president.

"This case, at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors.

The trial featured allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to stifle potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign through hush money payments, including to a porn actor who alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier. Trump has denied having sex with both women. His lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that neither the actor, Stormy Daniels , nor the Trump attorney who paid her can be trusted in their testimony.

"President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period," Blanche said.

Following more than four weeks of testimony, the daylong summations teed up a momentous and historically unprecedented task for the jury as it decides whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ahead of the November election. The political implications of the proceedings were unmistakable as President Joe Biden 's campaign staged an event outside the courthouse with actor Robert De Niro while Blanche reminded jurors that the case was not a referendum on their views about Trump .

Steinglass sought to defray potential juror concerns about witness credibility. He acknowledged that Daniels' account about the alleged 2006 encounter in Lake Tahoe hotel suite was at times "cringeworthy" but said the details she offered — including about the decor and what she said she saw when she snooped in Trump 's toiletry kit — were full of touchstones "that kind of ring true."

The story matters, he said, because it "reinforces ( Trump 's) incentive to buy her silence."

"Her story is messy. It makes people uncomfortable to hear. It probably makes some of you uncomfortable to hear. But that's kind of the point," Steinglass said. He told jurors: "In the simplest terms, Stormy Daniels is the motive."

He also tried to reassure jurors that the prosecution's case did not rest solely on Michael Cohen, Trump 's former lawyer and personal fixer who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in the hush money payments, as well as to lying to Congress. He went to prison and was disbarred, but his direct involvement in the transactions made him a key witness at trial.

"It's not about whether you like Michael Cohen. It's not about whether you want to go into business with Michael Cohen. It's whether he has useful, reliable information to give you about what went down in this case, and the truth is that he was in the best position to know," Steinglass said.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. It's unclear whether prosecutors would seek imprisonment in the event of a conviction, or if the judge would impose that punishment.