U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to call off Friday’s (January 10, 2025) sentencing in his hush money case in New York.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers turned to the nation’s highest court Wednesday (January 8, 2025) after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Juan M. Merchan, the judge who presided over Mr. Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys asked for an immediate stay of Friday’s (January 10, 2025) sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

The Supreme Court asked for a response from New York prosecutors by Thursday (January 9, 2025).

Mr. Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys have pointed to the Supreme Court’s ruling giving him broad immunity from criminal prosecution as they tried to have his New York conviction tossed out.

While that opinion came in a different case, Mr. Trump’s lawyers say it means some of the evidence used against him in his hush money trial should have been shielded by presidential immunity. Mr. Merchan has disagreed.

President-elect Donald Trump
| Photo Credit: AP

In an extraordinary turn, a judge Friday set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for January 10 — little over a week before he’s due to return to the White House — but indicated he wouldn’t be jailed.

The development nevertheless leaves Mr. Trump on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes.

Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signaled in a written decision that he’d sentence the former and future president to what’s known as a conditional discharge, in which a case gets dismissed if a defendant avoids rearrest.

Mr. Merchan rejected Mr. Trump’s push to dismiss the verdict and throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending return to the White House. The judge said he found “no legal impediment to sentencing” Trump and that it was “incumbent” on him to sentence Trump prior to his swearing in on Jan. 20.

“Only by bringing finality to this matter” will the interests of justice be served, Mr. Merchan wrote.

Mr. Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records. They involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016. The payout was made to keep her from publicizing claims she’d had sex with the married Trump years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.

After Mr. Trump’s November 5 election, Mr. Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to toss it. They said it would otherwise pose unconstitutional “disruptions” to the incoming president’s ability to run the country.

Prosecutors acknowledged there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insisted the conviction should stand.

They suggested various options, such as freezing the case during his term or guaranteeing him a no-jail sentence. They also proposed closing the case while formally noting both his conviction and his undecided appeal — a novel idea drawn from what some state courts do when criminal defendants die while appealing their cases.

Mr. Trump takes office January 20 as the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.

His conviction left the 78-year-old facing the possibility of punishment ranging from a fine or probation to up to four years in prison.

The case centered on how Mr. Trump accounted for reimbursing his personal attorney for the Daniels payment.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, fronted the money. He later recouped it through a series of payments that Trump’s company logged as legal expenses. Trump, by then in the White House, signed most of the checks himself.

Prosecutors said the designation was meant to cloak the true purpose of the payments and help cover up a broader effort to keep voters from hearing unflattering claims about the Republican during his first campaign.

Mr. Trump said that Cohen was legitimately paid for legal services, and that Daniels’ story was suppressed to avoid embarrassing Trump’s family, not to influence the electorate.

Mr. Trump was a private citizen — campaigning for president, but neither elected nor sworn in — when Cohen paid Daniels in October 2016. He was president when Cohen was reimbursed, and Cohen testified that they discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office.

Mr. Trump, a Republican, has decried the verdict as the “rigged, disgraceful” result of a “witch hunt” pursued by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.

Before Mr. Trump’s November election, his lawyers sought to reverse his conviction for a different reason: a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July that gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution. That request was still pending when the election raised new issues.

While urging Merchan to nix the conviction, Mr. Trump also sought to move the case to federal court, where he could also assert immunity. A federal judge repeatedly said no, but Trump appealed.

The hush money case was the only one of Mr. Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.

Since the election, special counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases. One pertained to Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss; the other alleged he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

A separate, state-level election interference case in Georgia is largely on hold.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers have asked the New York judge who presided over his hush money trial to set aside his conviction and delay his sentencing, scheduled for next week.

The letter to Judge Juan M. Merchan cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling earlier on Monday on presidential immunity and asked the judge to delay Mr. Trump’s sentencing while he weighs the high court’s decision and how it could influence the New York case, according to the letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The lawyers argue that the Supreme Court’s decision confirmed a position the defence raised earlier in the case that prosecutors should have been precluded from introducing some evidence they said constituted official presidential acts, according to the letter.

In prior court filings, Mr. Trump contended he is immune from prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office. His lawyers did not raise that as a defence in the hush money case, but they argued that some evidence — including Mr. Trump’s social media posts about former lawyer Michael Cohen — comes from his time as President and should have been excluded from the trial because of immunity protections.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on Monday night.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, extending the delay in the Washington criminal case against the Republican ex-president on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss.

President Joe Biden warned Monday that the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity sets a “dangerous precedent” that Donald Trump would exploit if elected in November.

“The American people must decide if they want to entrust… once again, the presidency to Donald Trump, now knowing he’ll be more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,” Biden said.

Trump was convicted in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records, arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor just before the 2016 presidential election. He is scheduled to be sentenced in the hush money case on July 11.

Merchan instituted a policy in the run-up to the trial requiring both sides to send him a one-page letter summarizing their arguments before making longer court filings. He said he did that to better manage the docket, so he was not inundated with voluminous paperwork.

In denying Trump’s bid to move the trial from New York state court to federal court last year, a federal judge found that the allegations at the center of the case pertained to Trump’s personal life and do not “reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.”

“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wrote in the ruling.

Donald Trump launched into attacks on the judge in his criminal trial and continued to undermine New York’s criminal justice system on May 31 as he tried to repackage his conviction on 34 felony charges as fuel, not an impediment, to his latest White House bid.

Trump spoke to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan on Friday, his return to campaigning a day after he was convicted of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn actor who claimed they had sex.

Also read | Analysis: How former U.S. President Donald Trump got convicted at his hush money trial

Trump, as defiant as ever, argued the verdict was illegitimate and driven by politics and sought to downplay the allegations underlying the case.

“It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said.

In a message aimed to galvanize his supporters, he declared: “If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone.”

While the guilty verdict against him and his vow to fight appeared to motivate his base of supporters, including those who began pouring donations into his campaign, it’s unclear if any of this will help him with independent voters who will be decisive in the November election.

No former president or presumptive party nominee has ever faced a felony conviction or the prospect of prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign. He has long argued without evidence that the four indictments against him were orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to try to keep him out of the White House. The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office.

Trump chose to start Friday in the atrium of Trump Tower, the brass and rose marble lobby where he descended his golden escalator to announce his 2016 campaign nine years ago next month.

In his disjointed remarks, Trump initially started attacking Biden on immigration and tax policies before pivoting to his case, growling that he was threatened with jail time if he violated a gag order. He picked apart intricate parts of the case and trial proceedings as unfair, making false statements and misrepresentations as he did so.

Trump said he wanted to testify but said the judge wanted to go into every detail. “I would have liked to have testified,” he said. “But you would have said something out of whack like ‘it was a beautiful sunny day,’ and it was actually raining out.”

Trump, who had the right to testify but didn’t, also tested the limits of the gag order that prohibits him from publicly critiquing witnesses including Michael Cohen, calling his former fixer, the star witness in the case, “a sleazebag.”

His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump joined him, but his wife, Melania Trump, who has been publicly silent since the verdict, was not seen.

Outside, on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street were flying a giant red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that was flapping in front of a high-end boutique. A small group of protesters held up signs that said “Guilty” and “Justice matters.”

On Friday morning, his campaign announced it had raised $34.8 million as donations poured in after the verdict. That’s more than $1 million for each felony charge and more than his political operation raised in January and February combined.

Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they held out hope for a hung jury. On Tuesday, Trump railed that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labeled as “rigged.”

His top aides on Wednesday released a memo in which they insisted a verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump was convicted or acquitted.

The news nonetheless landed with a jolt. Trump, his team and reporters at the courthouse had been under the impression that the jury on Thursday would wrap up deliberations for the day at 4:30 p.m. Trump sat smiling and chatting with his lawyers as the proceedings seemed to be coming to a close.

Trump had spent the hours before the verdict was announced sequestered in the private courtroom where he had spent breaks throughout the trial, huddled with his attorneys and campaign aides, eating from a revolving lunch menu of McDonald’s, pizza, and subs.

As the jury was deciding his fate, he filled his time making calls, firing off social media missives and chatting with friends, including developer Steve Witkoff, who joined him in court, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is considered a top vice presidential contender.

In a sign that they expected deliberations to continue, Trump’s holding room was outfitted with a television Thursday, according to two people familiar with the setup who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Instead, Merchan announced that a verdict had been reached. Thirty minutes later, Trump listened as the jury delivered a guilty verdict on every count. Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read.

His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals, and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text message called him a “political prisoner,” even though he hasn’t yet found out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps to reflect a “dark day in history.”

Aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed. The $34.8 million raised Thursday did not include what Trump collected at his in-person fundraiser or any donations that continued to come in online Friday.

“President Trump and our campaign are immensely grateful from this outpouring of support from patriots across our country,” Trump’s senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement. “President Trump is fighting to save our nation and November 5th is the day Americans will deliver the real verdict.”

Trump has long complained that the trial limited his campaign appearances for several weeks. “I want to campaign,” he had told reporters Thursday morning before a verdict was reached.

It is unclear, however, how much Trump’s schedule will ramp up in the days ahead. He held only a handful of public campaign events as the trial unfolded, despite the fact that he had Wednesdays, as well as evenings and weekends, to do what he wished.

He’s set in the upcoming two months to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.

But before he goes to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing. He could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation up to four years in prison.

In their opening statement at Donald Trump’s criminal trial, the prosecutors seeking to win the first-ever criminal conviction of a sitting or former U.S. president made a bold prediction: they would have hard evidence to back up testimony from Michael Cohen, the star witness branded a liar by the defense.

Over the next several weeks, jurors heard testimony from insiders at Mr. Trump’s real estate company, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his White House that methodically backed up the two core elements of Manhattan District Alvin Bragg’s case: that Mr. Trump was aware of a “catch-and-kill” conspiracy to buy the silence of people with negative information before the election, and that he was involved in a cover-up of Cohen’s hush money payment to a porn star.

That testimony — coupled with evidence such as bank records, emails and a surreptitious recording of Trump speaking about a hush money payment — culminated in the 12-member jury finding Mr. Trump guilty of criminal charges.

Its verdict: He illegally falsified business records to hide his reimbursement to Cohen for the $130,000 Cohen paid to buy the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election about an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.

To be sure, jury deliberations are secret and the reasoning behind the decision to convict will not be clear unless any jurors decide to speak publicly. Trump is almost certain to appeal his conviction.

Cohen testified at the trial in New York state criminal court in Manhattan that the reimbursement payments were falsely labeled as legal retainer fees in Trump’s family real estate company’s books. Cohen said Trump directed him to pay off Daniels, and that he would not have done so without getting paid back.

“He stated to me that he had spoken to some friends, some individuals, very smart people, and that: ‘It’s $130,000. You’re like a billionaire. Just pay it,’” Cohen said on May 13. “And he expressed to me: ‘Just do it.’”

The verdict vindicated Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who was criticized by both Trump’s fellow Republicans and some of Bragg’s fellow Democrats for bringing a case involving well-known allegations of sexual impropriety, even if the transaction that mattered was financial.

Bragg argued the case was truly about an effort to corrupt the 2016 election – not sex.

“It was the subversion of democracy,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said in his May 28 closing statement. The “catch-and-kill” conspiracy, he said, was meant “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion.”

The case is widely viewed as less consequential than the other three criminal cases Mr. Trump faces on charges over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden and his retention of sensitive government documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the other three cases, which are unlikely to reach juries before his Nov. 5 election rematch with Mr. Biden.

‘Out of character’

One challenge for Bragg’s case was Cohen’s credibility. Cohen went to prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to violating campaign finance law with the payment to Daniels and lying to Congress in 2017 about a Trump Organization real estate project in Russia. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche hounded Cohen on cross-examination about his lies to journalists and an instance in which he stole from Trump’s company.

So prosecutors needed plenty of evidence backing up Cohen’s testimony that Trump was aware of Cohen’s payment to Daniels, which they argued was part of a broader conspiracy to buy the silence of people with potentially negative information about Trump in violation of campaign finance laws.

Jurors did not have to rely solely on Cohen’s testimony to accept that Trump intended to conceal that alleged conspiracy by labeling his 2017 payments to Cohen as legal retainer fees.

David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, testified that he agreed at an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen to be the campaign’s “eyes and ears” for women coming forward with unflattering stories about Trump.

Jurors heard a tape Cohen surreptitiously recorded of Mr. Trump on Sept. 6, 2016, discussing a hush money payment Pecker’s company made to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who says she had a year-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. Trump denied having ever had a sexual relationship with her or with Daniels.

Jurors saw phone records showing Cohen had several calls with Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schiller – whom Cohen said would hand his phone to Trump – around the time of frantic negotiations with Daniels’ lawyer over the payment in October 2016.

In some of his most damning testimony, Cohen said he, Mr. Trump and then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg discussed the repayment plan in a January 2017 meeting shortly before Trump’s inauguration as president.

Weisselberg, who is serving a five-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to perjury in a separate case, did not testify for either side at the trial. But jurors saw Weisselberg’s handwritten notes – jotted down on a copy of the wire transfer receipt for Cohen’s payment to Daniels’ lawyer – with instructions as to how Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney should pay Cohen. McConney testified that he understood the payments to be a reimbursement for Cohen, not legal fees.

Hope Hicks, a former communications aide of Trump’s, recalled Trump telling her that Cohen paid Daniels “out of the kindness of his own heart” – consistent with the defense’s efforts to distance Trump himself from the hush money deals.

But Hicks expressed skepticism of that claim.

“That,” Hicks testified on May 3, “would be out of character for Michael.”

Former President Donald Trump speaks outside the courtroom at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on May 30, 2024 after a jury convicted him of felony crimes for falsifying business records.
| Photo Credit: AP

Donald Trump became the first former President to be convicted of felony crimes on May 30 as a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts after deliberating for 9.5 hours.

Trump has called his guilty verdict a ‘disgrace’. The judge has set his sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to select him as 2024 nominee.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail as a convicted felon. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week. It will likely take several months for Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, to decide whether to sentence Trump to prison.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already-hardened opinions about Trump.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

In addition, the general allegations of the case have been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, even as it provides fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial asked to rehear testimony on Wednesday less than four hours after beginning deliberations in the first criminal case against a former American president.

The four requests included testimony related to a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower where a tabloid publisher agreed to identify negative stories about Trump so that they could be squelched during his presidential run. Jurors wanted to hear accounts of that meeting from two participants — Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, and David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer.

The jury of seven men and five women was sent to a private room just before 11:30 a.m. to begin weighing a verdict in the historic case. The jurors’ discussions will be secret, though they can send notes to the judge asking to rehear testimony, like the one sent Wednesday afternoon. That’s also how they will notify the court of a verdict, or if they are unable to reach one.

“It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours,” Judge Juan M. Merchan told jurors. He also reminded them of their vow during the selection process to judge the case fairly and impartially.

Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following an hourlong reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a “very unfair trial” and saying: “Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do.”

Trump and his lawyers, along with prosecutors, were instructed to remain inside the courthouse during deliberations. While waiting behind closed doors there, he continued making a series of posts on his social media network complaining about the trial and quoting legal and political commentators who view the case in his favor.

In one post, written in all-capital letters, he said: “I don’t even know what the charges are in this rigged case — I am entitled to specificity just like anyone else.” He added, “There is no crime!”

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.

The charge, a felony, arises from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer 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 reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and contends 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 find unanimously that he created a fraudulent entry in his company’s records, or caused someone else to do so, and that he did so with the intent of committing or concealing another crime.

The crime prosecutors say Trump committed or hid is a violation of a New York election law making it illegal for two or more conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

While the jury must unanimously agree that something unlawful was done to promote Trump’s election campaign, they don’t have to be unanimous on what that unlawful thing was.

The jurors — a diverse cross-section of Manhattan residents and professional backgrounds — often appeared riveted by testimony in the trial, including from Cohen and Daniels. Many took notes and watched intently as witnesses answered questions from Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers.

Jurors started 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 needing to establish Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

A defense lawyer spoke for about half that time; the Trump team need not establish his innocence to avoid a conviction but must instead bank on at least one juror finding that prosecutors have not sufficiently proved their case.

Earlier Wednesday, the jury received instructions in the law from Merchan, who offered some guidance on factors the panel can use to assess witness testimony, including its plausibility, its consistency with other testimony, the witness’ manner on the stand and whether the person has a motive to lie.

But, the judge said, “there is no particular formula for evaluating the truthfulness and accuracy of another person’s statement.”

The principles he outlined are standard but perhaps all the more relevant after Trump’s defense leaned heavily on questioning the credibility of key prosecution witnesses, including Cohen.

Merchan also instructed jurors on the concept of accessorial liability, under which a defendant can be held criminally responsible for someone else’s actions.

That’s a key component of the prosecution’s theory of the case because, while Trump signed some of the checks at issue, people working for his company processed Cohen’s invoices and entered the transactions into its accounting system.

In order to hold Trump liable for those actions, Merchan said jurors must find beyond a reasonable doubt that he solicited, requested or commanded those people to engage in that conduct and that he acted intentionally.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass touched on accessorial liability in his closing argument Tuesday, telling jurors: “No one is saying the defendant actually got behind a computer and typed in the false vouchers or stamped the false invoices or printed the false checks.”

“But he set in motion a chain of events that led to the creation of the false business records,” Steinglass said.

Any verdict must be unanimous. During deliberations, six alternate jurors who also sat through every minute of the trial will be kept at the courthouse in a separate room in case they are needed to replace a juror who falls ill or is otherwise unavailable. If that happens, deliberations will start anew once the replacement juror is in place.

Former President Donald Trump walks to speaks to reporters with his attorney Todd Blanche, right, as jurors begin deliberations for his trial at Manhattan criminal court, on May 29, 2024, in New York.
| Photo Credit: AP

Jurors began deliberating on May 29 on whether to convict Donald Trump in the first criminal trial of a former US President — with their decision potentially upending November’s election, in which the Republican seeks to return to power.

After weeks of testimony from more than 20 witnesses, the piercing glare of the legal spotlight shifted to the 12-strong New York jury, kept anonymous for their own protection amid soaring political tensions.

After receiving final instructions from the judge, jurors left the courtroom to sit in a designated room where they alone will have the final say on 77-year-old Trump.

“You must set aside any personal opinions you have in favor or against the defendant,” said Judge Juan Merchan.

“As a juror, you are asked to make a very important decision about another member of the community.”

No time limit is placed on the deliberations, but an acquittal or conviction would require unanimity. If just one juror refuses to join the others, the judge would have to declare a mistrial.

Trump is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse a $130,000 payment to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels, when her account of an alleged sexual encounter could have imperiled his 2016 presidential campaign. Prosecutors say the fraud was motivated by a plot to prevent voters from knowing about his behavior.

If Trump is found guilty, the political repercussions would far outweigh the seriousness of the charges as, barely five months before the November 5 presidential election, the candidate would also become a convicted criminal.

The judge instructed Trump that he will have to remain in the courthouse while awaiting the verdict. Trump responded by stepping outside the courtroom to launch an angry statement to journalists, calling it a “very disgraceful situation.”

“These charges are rigged,” Trump said, claiming that “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges.”

‘Hatred for Trump’

In closing arguments on Tuesday, Trump’s defense team insisted the evidence for a conviction simply did not exist, while the prosecution countered that it was voluminous and inescapable.

“The defendant’s intent to defraud could not be any clearer,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, urging the jurors to use their “common sense” and return a guilty verdict.

If convicted, Trump faces up to four years in prison on each of 34 counts, but legal experts say that as a first-time offender he is unlikely to get jail time.

A conviction would not bar him from the November ballot and he would almost certainly appeal. In the case of a mistrial, prosecutors could seek a new trial.

Trump has been required to attend every day of the trial.

However, he has used his trips to court and the huge media presence to spread his claim that the trial is a Democratic ploy to keep him off the campaign trail.

Polls show Trump neck and neck against President Joe Biden, and the verdict will inflame passions as the White House race intensifies.

In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He also faces charges in Florida of hoarding huge quantities of classified documents after leaving the White House.

The New York case is the only one likely to come to trial by election day.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, with attorney Todd Blanche, speaks to the press amid his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, on May 10, 2024. Trump is accused of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with adult film actress Stormy Daniels to shield his 2016 election campaign from adverse publicity.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Donald Trump’s defence attorney and Stormy Daniels went head to head on Thursday during cross-examination of the porn star’s blistering testimony, the line of questioning occasionally meandering into the bizarre and even earning a critique afterwards from the judge.

Under examination that frequently veered hostile, Ms. Daniels was quick on her feet, toeing a tight line between tenacity and vulnerability as jurors watched the defense deride her career and assail her credibility.

She clapped back for hours during the most intense testimony yet in the criminal trial, which centers on whether a $130,000 hush money payment to Ms. Daniels was fraudulently covered up with the intent of influencing the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles insisted repeatedly through her questioning that Ms. Daniels, 45, had fabricated her story of a one-off sexual encounter with Trump.

“You made all this up, right?” the counsel asked at one point, prompting Ms. Daniels to respond with an emphatic “No.”

Several moments saw Ms. Daniels accuse Ms. Necheles of putting words in her mouth: “You’re trying to make me say it’s changed, but it hasn’t changed,” she said, referring to her account of events.

Team Trump vied to cast Ms. Daniels as money-grubbing, sleazy and deceptive.

Ms. Necheles grilled Ms. Daniels over her decision to pen a book that included depictions of the encounter, and her decision to promote branded products.

“Not unlike Mr. Trump,” Ms. Daniels quipped back.

In one of the more offbeat moments of the nearly eight hours of testimony, Ms. Necheles brought up interest in Ms. Daniels in tarot cards and the paranormal, in an apparent bid to cast her as unhinged.

She then moved to present Ms. Daniels as a fabulist, mocking her work as a screenwriter and director of pornographic films while alleging that it makes her good at twisting the truth.

“So you have a lot of experience in making phony stories about sex appear to be real?” said Ms. Necheles.

“Wow, that’s not how I would put it,” Ms. Daniels said.

“The sex is real. The characters names might be different. But the sex is very real. That’s why it’s pornography,” the witness continued.

If the story with Mr. Trump were untrue, she said, “I would’ve written it to be a lot better.”

Mistrial denied, again

At the close of her marathon testimony which lasted approximately eight hours over two days, the defense asked Ms. Daniels if she knew anything about Mr. Trump’s bookkeeping — the actual crux of the case.

She said she does not.

But that wasn’t the point of calling Ms. Daniels to the stand, one prosecutor said later — she was there to detail why Mr. Trump would’ve wanted to cover up her story at the finish line of his White House bid.

That reasoning came up after jurors had been dismissed for the day, during a motion hearing that saw Team Trump try once more for a mistrial.

It was again denied, but not before Judge Juan Merchan skewered Mr. Trump’s lawyers in front of him.

“I disagree with your narrative that there is any new account here. I disagree that there is any changing story,” he said, audibly irritated.

In his extraordinary dressing down of the defence’s lawyering, Mr. Merchan said their very insistence that Ms. Daniels had made the encounter up cleared the way for the prosecution to include evidence — much of it salacious — to the contrary.

Ms. Necheles spent much of her cross-hammering on the very details they were holding up as grounds for a mistrial, Mr. Merchan said, “drilling it over and over and over again into the jury’s ears.”

“I don’t understand the reason for that,” he said during his dramatic critique, asking why the defence had not objected to the presentation of those details during direct questioning.

And that Mr. Trump’s team has been attacking Ms. Daniels from the very beginning, including during opening statements, “pits your client’s word against Ms. Daniels’ word,” Mr. Merchan said.

“That, in my mind, allows The People to do what they can to rehabilitate her and corroborate her story,” he said, using a term for the prosecution.

“Your motion for a mistrial is denied.”

New York:

Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the heart of Donald Trump’s hush money case, testified in a rapt Manhattan courtroom Tuesday about a 2006 sexual encounter that precipitated the criminal trial of the former US president.

Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to Daniels to silence her on the eve of his 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, when the lurid story of marital infidelity could have sunk his campaign.

Daniels’ testimony is providing a pivotal moment in the courtroom drama rocking the scandal-plagued Republican’s attempt to recapture the White House in November.

“The people call Stormy Daniels,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger announced as Trump, dressed in a dark blue suit and gold tie, sat stony-faced at the defense table flanked by his lawyers.

Daniels, 45, wearing a black pantsuit and heavy eyeliner, began by answering questions from Hoffinger, who walked her through her difficult childhood in Louisiana, stint as a stripper and eventually her participation in the adult film industry.

Daniels said she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe where she was employed as a greeter by the adult film company Wicked Entertainment.

Trump complimented her as the “smart one” because she was not only acting in X-rated movies but also directing them, she said.

Daniels said she was 27 at the time and Trump was “older, probably older than my father.”

She said a member of Trump’s security detail told her the real estate tycoon wanted to have dinner with her.

She said she was initially reluctant but agreed after discussing it with her publicist.

Daniels said when she arrived at the penthouse where Trump was staying he emerged wearing “silk or satin pajamas which I immediately made fun of.”

“I said ‘Does Mr Hefner know you stole his pajamas?'” she said in a reference to the outfit favored by the late Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.

Trump changed into a dress shirt and pants and they began talking about adult movies.

“He was very interested in a lot of the business stuff,” Daniels said.

Trump, who was married at the time to his current wife, Melania, suggested at one point that Daniels should be on his hit reality television show, “The Apprentice,” she said.

“I said there’s no way NBC would let me on television,” she said.

‘Startled me’

Daniels said she went to the bathroom at one point and when she emerged Trump “was on the bed between myself and the door” in boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

“It startled me,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there especially minus a lot of clothing.”

“The intention was pretty clear,” she said, adding that she thought to herself “great, I’ve put myself in this bad situation.”

“I was not threatened verbally or physically,” Daniels said, although there was an “imbalance of power.”

She said they had sex on the bed “in missionary position” and Trump did not wear a condom.

“I felt ashamed I didn’t stop it, didn’t say no,” Daniels said. “I told very few people.”

Trump has denied having sex with Daniels.

Prosecutors say that Trump — desperate to kill Daniels’ story before it could wreck his chances in the narrow 2016 race — illegally reimbursed Cohen, to cover up the hush money payment.

Cohen, who has become a vocal critic of his former boss, is also expected to testify at the trial as a prosecution witness.

Gag order

The courtroom face-off comes exactly six months before election day, when Trump will try to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden for a shock return to power.

Trump will be constrained from attacking Daniels after Merchan on Monday found him in contempt of court for his repeated violations of a partial gag order.

The gag order is meant to prevent Trump from using his huge media presence to attack witnesses, members of the jury and court staff in a bid to influence the trial.

Merchan said that in addition a series of already imposed fines, Trump will face the threat of jail time for future violations.

The trial is the first criminal prosecution in history of a US president and is one of four cases against the real estate tycoon.

In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Biden.

He also faces charges of illegally storing top-secret documents taken from the White House at his home in Florida and refusing to return them.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)