NEW YORK (AP) — The jury in former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial will resume deliberations Thursday after asking to reconsider portions of the judge’s instructions and repeat testimony from several key witnesses about the alleged scheme at its heart of history. case.
The 12-member jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours Wednesday without reaching a verdict. Before the end of the day, they asked to hear testimony from a tabloid publisher and Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, and on Thursday morning the judge responded to a jury request by rereading 30 pages of jury instructions on how to draw inferences from evidence .
It is unclear how long the deliberations will last. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as he tries to win back the White House, while an acquittal would mark a major victory for him and embolden him on the campaign trail. Because the verdicts must be unanimous, it is also possible that the case could end in a mistrial if the jury cannot reach a consensus after days of deliberation.
Trump struck a pessimistic tone as he left the courtroom Wednesday following the reading of jury instructions, saying, “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges.” When he returned to court Thursday, he called it a “sad day for America.”
In a memo Wednesday evening, Trump campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles labeled the proceedings a “kangaroo court” and argued the case would not matter in November.
“The bottom line is that this case has no impact on voters,” they wrote.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying corporate records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to cover up potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 presidential election campaign.
The charge, a misdemeanor, stems from fees paid to then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006. Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s repayments. as legal fees to hide the fact that they were bound by a hush money payment.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and claims the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services. He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.
To convict Trump, the jury would have to unanimously find that he made or induced someone else to make a fraudulent entry in his company’s records and that he acted with the intent to commit or conceal another crime.
Prosecutors say Trump committed or concealed election law violations that make it illegal for two or more conspirators “to unlawfully promote or prevent the election of any person to public office.”
While the jurors must unanimously agree that something illegal was done to promote Trump’s election campaign, they do not have to unanimously agree on what that illegal thing was.
The jurors — a diverse cross-section of Manhattan residents and professional backgrounds — often seemed fascinated by testimony during the trial, including from Cohen and Daniels. Many took notes and watched intently as witnesses answered questions from prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers.
Jurors began deliberating after a marathon day of closing arguments in which a prosecutor spoke for more than five hours, underscoring the burden the district attorney’s office faces in establishing Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Trump team does not have to establish his innocence to avoid a conviction, but must instead rely on at least one juror ruling that prosecutors have not sufficiently proven their case.
In their first burst of communication with the court, jurors asked to repeat testimony from Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about an August 2015 meeting with Trump at Trump Tower, where the tabloid boss agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of his fledgling presidential campaign.
Pecker testified that the plan included identifying potentially damaging stories about Trump so they could be squashed before they were published. According to prosecutors, that was the beginning of the catch-and-kill scheme at the heart of the case.
Jurors also want to hear Pecker’s account of a phone call he said he received from Trump, in which they discussed a rumor that another outlet had offered to buy former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that she had a yearslong affair in the mid-2000s had with Trump. Trump has denied the affair.
Pecker testified that Trump told him, “Karen is a nice girl,” and asked, “What do you think I should do?” Pecker said he responded, “I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.” He added that Trump told him he doesn’t buy stories because they always come out and that Cohen would be in touch.
The publisher said he left the conversation assuming Trump knew the specifics of McDougal’s claims. Pecker said he believed the story was true and that it would have been embarrassing for Trump and his campaign if it had been made public.
National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., ultimately paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story in a deal that also included writing and other opportunities with the fitness magazine and other publications.
The fourth item jurors asked for is Pecker’s testimony about his decision in October 2016 to back out of an agreement to sell the rights to McDougal’s story to Trump through a company Cohen created for the transaction, known as a ‘transfer of rights’.
“I called Michael Cohen and told him that the agreement, the assignment agreement, is not going through. I’m not moving forward. It’s a bad idea, and I want you to tear up the agreement,” Pecker testified. “He was very, very angry. Very upset. Actually yelling at me.”
Pecker testified that he repeated to Cohen that he was not going through with the agreement.
He said Cohen told him, “The boss will be very angry with you.”
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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.
