Conclusions from the final day of testimony in the criminal trial against Donald Trump

(CNN) — After nearly 90 minutes of testimony and without taking the former president’s side, the defense ended the presentation of its case this Tuesday in Donald Trump’s criminal trial for hush money payments.

Trump’s lawyers called two witnesses: a paralegal who introduced phone records as evidence and Robert Costello, a lawyer who was negotiating with Michael Cohen to represent him after the FBI raid on his home and office in 2018 .

Publicly, Trump left open the possibility that he might testify in his own defense, but his lawyers always seemed to dismiss that possibility.

Ultimately, the most important witness for the defense was Cohen, who testified in the prosecution’s case but was cross-examined for a total of more than eight hours over three days.

The jury will now have a week off for Memorial Day, and closing arguments are scheduled for next Tuesday. The decision is likely to come by the end of next week.

Here are the takeaways from the last day of testimony in Trump’s trial:

Trump doesn’t take a stand

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly hinted that he would take a stand in his own defense.

“Well, I would do it if I had to,” Trump said in an April 25 interview on Newsmax.

“Maybe yes, I would like to do that, I mean, I think so,” Trump told a Wisconsin television station on May 7.

But on Tuesday, Trump’s opportunity to testify came and went quickly, with Costello leaving the stand after attorney Todd Blanch told the judge: “The defense is pending.”

Ultimately, there was little mystery in the decision: Lawyers and the judge had been counting down the deadline to the end of the trial since last week, assuming Trump would not testify.

One reason Trump was not expected to take a stand was the scope of the questioning. Prosecutors asked the judge to allow them to question the former president about his misdeeds related to other cases in order to question Trump’s credibility as a witness.

After a routine hearing on what would be allowed — known as a Sandoval hearing — the judge ruled that prosecutors could look into a $464 civil fraud verdict brought by Trump’s New York attorney general last fall. Trump would be allowed to be interrogated in that case due to two violations of a judge’s restraining order, two E. Jean Carroll verdicts against Trump in defamation cases, and Trump’s settlement with the New York Attorney General that led to Donald J. Trump Foundation disbanded.

Additionally, Trump would certainly have faced questions related to the affair, including his alleged affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

It all boils down to the calculations of Trump and his lawyers that it would be better for him not to take the witness stand.

The most important defense was Cohen’s cross-examination

The cross-examination of Cohen, the prosecution’s final witness, lasted eight hours, almost four times longer than the defense’s entire presentation.

The distinction underlined Cohen’s importance to the prosecution’s case against Trump and the fact that defense efforts to discredit the former Trump adviser as a witness could be crucial to an acquittal or a hung jury.

Blanche sought to undermine Cohen’s credibility, accusing him of fabricating his conversations with Trump, stealing from his former boss and continuing to lie even after he was convicted of perjury in 2018.

The most dramatic moment of the cross-examination came when Blanch confronted Cohen about a call he had with Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller on Oct. 24, 2016, at 8:02 p.m., in which Cohen testified Schiller put Trump on the phone line and told Cohen he was moving forward with the payment to Daniels.

But Blanch showed Cohen text messages she exchanged with Schiller before and after that call, revealing that she was working with a teenager who was making prank calls and asking Schiller for help. .

“That was a lie,” Blanch said of Cohen’s testimony alleging that he talked to Trump about moving forward on the hush money deal. “You were actually talking to Mr. Schiller about the fact that you were getting harassing calls from a 14-year-old boy, correct?”

Cohen responded, “Part of it was 14 years old, but I know Keith was with Mr. Trump at the time and there was potentially more to it than that. That’s what I remember based on the documents I reviewed.”

Prosecutors tried to legitimize Cohen’s testimony by presenting a C-Span screenshot that showed Trump leaving the stage of a Florida rally with Schiller five minutes before the call.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger also tried to remind jurors that Trump, not Cohen, was on trial in the case.

“Now, I know that after cross-examination you may feel like you’re on trial. Are you really on trial here?” Hoffinger asked Cohen.
“No, madam,” Cohen replied.

After prosecutors finished their questioning, Blanch asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the case, a typical request from defendants that rarely succeeds. Blanch argued that Cohen had lied in his testimony in the case and that it should be dismissed.

“So you want me to take this out of the jury’s hands and decide before it even gets to the jury that, as a matter of law, this person is so unreliable that he shouldn’t be tried by a jury? Is that?” “What are you proposing?” Merchant asked.

Blanche responded, “All of her testimony should not be considered by the jury. Certainly. That’s what we want from the court.”

Merchan was skeptical and later asked Blanche, “You said his lies are ‘irrefutable,’ but do you think he would fool 12 New Yorkers into believing this lie?”

Costello had a tough experience

Arguing against prosecutors’ efforts to prevent Costello from testifying, Trump’s lawyers said Costello would rebut prosecutors’ suggestion that Trump waged a “pressure campaign” in 2018 to intimidate Cohen into keeping silent.

Merchan ruled that Costello could testify, but said he would not let the testimony become a mini-trial about whether there was indeed a pressure campaign on Cohen and how it affected Trump’s former lawyer at the time.

Trump’s attorney Emile Bové tried to show that Cohen used Costello’s legal services as a vehicle for contact with Trump, although he never signed the retainer agreement and ultimately declined to handle his federal case. Went with another lawyer for.

In their first meeting, Costello said that Cohen was “completely manic” and suicidal after the FBI raid on his properties. According to Costello, Cohen said 10 to 12 times during the meeting: “I swear to God, Bob, I have nothing against Donald Trump.”

Costello’s testimony before the jury on Monday created tension between Costello and the judge. Marchan cleared the courtroom to reprimand Costello for gesturing and mumbling about the judge’s rulings, limiting what he could say on the stand.

Under cross-examination, Hoffinger tried to discredit Costello, suggesting that he was more aligned with Trump’s interests than Cohen was when he was advising him in the spring of 2018.

Hoffinger suggested that Costello, who was in frequent contact with his close friend Rudy Giuliani, was part of a pressure campaign to keep Cohen in line. Costello acknowledged that he offered Cohen an informal channel with Trump through Giuliani, but said it was for Cohen’s benefit.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday

Both sides returned to court Tuesday afternoon, without jurors present, to discuss the instructions the judge will give the jury ahead of deliberations next week.

The court will then go dark for a week, a scheduling decision Merchan made so that the final stages of the trial wouldn’t be interrupted by the four-day Memorial Day weekend.

Merchan told jurors they will return next Tuesday for closing arguments, which are expected to last all day. Once the jury receives its instructions, Trump’s fate will be in their hands.