IIt was easy to get distracted by the colorful cast of characters who paraded onto the witness stand during the 16 days of testimony in Donald Trump’s first criminal trial. There was the former porn star, the tabloid editor, his disgraced former fixer, the former press secretary who burst into tears on the stand.
They all spent much of their testimony rehashing a story that has been public for years. However, they also brought new details of Trump’s alleged scheme to bribe Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public with her sexual encounter, a decision at the center of the prosecution’s case against Trump.
Trump denies having an affair with Daniels and says he was falsely accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide his payments to buy her silence before the 2016 election.
Final arguments are scheduled for Tuesday and a jury could return with a verdict as soon as this week.
Here are five things we learned during the test:
The head of National Inquirer described a partnership with Trump aimed at boosting his presidential candidacy
To make their case, prosecutors need to convince the jury that Trump’s main concern was his campaign, when he paid Stormy Daniels to remain silent and falsified business records to hide the payments.
Trump’s longtime friend David Pecker, former editor of National Inquirermay have reinforced that point when he took the stand and described an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower when he agreed to be Trump’s “eyes and ears” to help bury damaging stories during his campaign.
Pecker, with his gray hair slicked back to his collar, told the jury how Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer at the time, called him in August 2015 and told him that “The Boss” – his nickname for Trump – wanted him to come . to Trump Tower. Pecker described talking to Trump and Cohen for 20 to 25 minutes — and that former aide Hope Hicks came in and out of the room while they were meeting. Trump wanted to know how Inquisitor could help Trump’s campaign, Pecker said. Pecker described how he offered to run positive stories about Trump, negative stories about his opponents and notify Trump when women contacted reporters with stories about the real estate mogul.
“I said I would be your eyes and ears because I know the Trump Organization had a very small staff,” Pecker told the jury. “And so I said that anything I heard in the marketplace, if I heard anything negative about you or if I heard anything about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen” and he would have another magazine take down the story “or someone would have to buy them.
Pecker described how he later bought a story about Trump from a Trump Tower doorman and another from a former Playboy model. But when it came to suppressing Daniels’ story, Pecker said she didn’t want the story to National Inquirer being associated with a porn actress. Michael Cohen ended up paying Daniels directly and said Trump agreed to reimburse him.
“Pecker has established that they intended to make these rewards to benefit that campaign since the Trump Tower meeting in August 2015,” says Norm Eisen, senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution and former counsel in the Democratic-led House. Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment.
See more information: What will happen if Trump is convicted? Your questions, answered
Hope Hicks said Trump was concerned about the Stormy Daniels story coming out before the 2016 election
Hicks, Trump’s former communications director, began crying on the witness stand moments after describing why Trump was so motivated to keep certain stories out of public view before the election.
Prosecutors asked Hicks about a conversation she had with Trump in February 2018, when news began to surface that Stormy Daniels had been paid to remain silent about her 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
Hicks served as Trump’s White House communications director and was sitting at a table outside the Oval Office at the time. She described Trump asking her how news of his connection with Daniels was being reported in the press. Trump seemed relieved the story hadn’t come out sooner, Hicks said.
“He wanted to know how it was going, and just my thoughts and opinion on this story versus having the story — a different kind of story before the campaign if Michael hadn’t made the payment,” Hicks said. “And I think Mr. Trump’s view was that it was better to deal with this now and that it would have been bad for this story to come out before the election.”
After she said that, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said, “No more questions.” She started crying moments later.
Stormy Daniels described being pressured into having sex with Trump
Daniels told the jury she felt there was a power imbalance when Trump allegedly had sex with her in a Nevada hotel room in 2006. She described meeting Trump during a celebrity golf tournament on the shores of Lake Tahoe, the encounter initial event that happened for the first time. move the events of the case. She was 27 years old at the time and attended the event to promote a porn studio. Trump invited her to his hotel room to discuss her appearance on his reality show “The Apprentice,” she said.
Daniels gave specific details of her time with Trump. She described Trump’s bodyguard telling her which elevator to take to the penthouse, describing the double doors leading into the room and the black and white tile floor. She remembers talking to him and then excusing herself to go to the bathroom, where she looked through her toiletry kit and saw Old Spice, Pert Plus and gold tweezers in a manicure set. When she left the bathroom, she saw that Trump was on the bed, between her and the exit, wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt.
Daniels said she was surprised and thought to herself, “Oh my God, what did I misinterpret to get here.” “I thought to myself, great. I put myself in this bad situation.”
She remembered that Trump had the upper hand at the moment. “I noticed there was a bodyguard outside the door. There was a power imbalance, for sure. He was bigger and blocked the way. But I want to say that I was not threatened verbally or physically,” she said. She said she passed out and the next thing she remembers is that she was lying on her back on the bed. Daniels told the jury that the sexual encounter was brief and that Trump did not use a condom, and she said that worried her. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
As Daniels was leaving Trump’s hotel room, Daniels recalled Trump telling him, “We should get together again. We were fantastic together. I want to get you on the show.
“I told very few people that we had sex because I felt ashamed that I hadn’t stopped, that I hadn’t said no,” Daniels said.
A handwritten note described Michael Cohen being reimbursed $130,000
The crux of the case is whether Trump himself paid for Daniels to remain silent and obscured that payment as legal fees to Cohen.
On May 6, prosecutors showed the jury a handwritten note written by Jeffrey McConney, a former Trump Organization executive, that they said outlined why Cohen was being paid. The note describes a “reimbursement to Cohen” for The Wire transfer of $130,000, the amount Cohen paid Daniels.
Prosecutors want the jury to see that note as a crucial part of a document that shows Trump intended to reimburse Cohen for the reward to Daniels, Eisen explains. “We learned there was a smoking document that we hadn’t seen before,” says Eisen.
Read more: Central Witness in Trump and Hush-Money Trial Shares Tortured Story
Michael Cohen admitted he stole from the Trump Organization
This handwritten document serves both purposes for the prosecution. While it helped bolster his case against Trump, it also undermined the credibility of his already flawed witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer.
Much of the prosecution’s case rests on the word of Cohen, a convicted perjurer. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple crimes involving the hush money scheme, including lying to Congress and federal investigators.
After the indictment highlighted the $130,000 payment in the note, Trump’s lawyers asked Cohen to explain another part of that count of refunds to Cohen, specifically a payment to the technology company Red Finch to rig Trump’s ratings in some polls. Cohen paid Red Finch $20,000 but charged the Trump Organization $50,000, pocketing the difference.
Trump’s defense attorney asked Cohen about the extra money he added when requesting a refund from the Trump Organization.
“You stole from the Trump Organization, right?” Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche asked Cohen about cross-examination.
“Yes, sir,” Cohen said.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
