After a marathon day of closing arguments in Donald Trump ’s New York hush-money trial, jurors are poised to begin deliberating the former president’s fate today on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records — the last phase of an unprecedented case pitting Trump against the city and state where he made his name. Related Stories News Prosecutor Points To “Smoking Guns” In Trump Hush Money Trial; Jury Deliberations To Start Wednesday — Update News Robert De Niro Makes Surprise Biden Campaign Appearance Outside New York Hush Money Trial To Warn Of “Tyrant” Donald Trump (Watch) The jury will have to decide if the maneuvering around a $130,000 payoff in 2016 to porn star Stormy Daniels by Trump’s roving legal fixer, Michael Cohen, was “a conspiracy and a cover-up” designed to “hoodwink voters,” as Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass put it on Tuesday, citing a “mountain” of documentary evidence he said corroborated the testimony of Cohen, Daniels and numerous other witnesses. Defense lawyer Todd Blanche gave jurors another option: to regard the whole transaction as a messy backstage campaign drama unworthy of felony prosecution, and unprovable in any case with convicted, disbarred lawyer Cohen — the “GLOAT,” or “greatest liar of all time,” in Blanche’s words — as the prosecution’s star witness.
Trump says Daniels’ claim of a sexual encounter with him in 2006 is made up. His lawyers have argued that the 34 .
