The first case against Michael Cohen, Mark Daniels and the Trump Organization: Trump’s old friend, Cohen’s girlfriend, and her affair with Michael Cohen
The 12 jurors will need to unanimously agree to either convict or acquit Trump in the first criminal case against a former or sitting U.S. president. Donald Trump has to wait in the building until the jurors are done with the case. It could take more than a few hours.
The jurors returned to court at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday to check out their requests from the day before. They had asked to have several portions of testimony read back to them.
The jury heard from 22 witnesses during about four weeks of testimony in Manhattan’s criminal court. Jurors also weighed other evidence — mostly documents like phone records, invoices and checks to Michael Cohen, Trump’s once loyal “fixer,” who paid Daniels to keep her story of an alleged affair with the former president quiet.
Though historic, it’s just the first of several separate federal and state cases Trump is currently facing, all while he tries to regain his old seat at the White House. The case was brought by prosecutors who claimed that the Trump Organization had paid Michael Cohen to keep Daniels from talking about her and Trump having sex. Witnesses at the trial included Daniels and Cohen as well as David Pecker, the former publisher of the tabloid the National Enquirer, who helped broker the deal with Daniels.
The Trial of Donald Trump at a Manhattan High Court, Denied for lying to hide payments to suppress an unflattering story about him
The jurors also asked for New York Judge Juan Merchan to read back a portion of the jury instructions that described how they should consider certain testimony, laws around liability, definitions of intent and New York tax law.
Cohen described a repayment scheme that resulted in 34 counts of falsified business records, including 11 fraudulent invoices and 12 false ledger entries. Nine of the checks were signed by Trump, himself.
Jamelle Bouie I am no lawyer and did not follow every in and out of the trial, but if there was a single thing that doomed Donald Trump — or at least, if there was a single thing that harmed his effort to escape a guilty verdict — it was his total contempt for the process and the proceedings. It is hard to imagine that he was helped, in any way, by his constant attacks on judge, jury and the trial itself. The jury, obviously, is asked only to evaluate the evidence before it, and yet, it is asking a lot of anyone to sit and ignore the fact that the defendant has, publicly, turned you into an enemy.
A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of all counts in a case accusing him of lying to conceal payments to suppress unflattering stories about him.
It is going to be November 5th, which is when Trump said the real verdict will be. “We didn’t do a thing wrong. I’m a very innocent man.” He also blamed the Biden administration for the trial, even though the charges were not brought by the federal government, but rather the Manhattan district attorney’s office — an independent local enforcer. A picture of Trump with a fist raised and the words “NEVER SURRENDER” on his campaign site has been posted on the X account.
Reporters at CNN and The New York Times reported that Trump changed his demeanor from lighthearted to serious when he learned that the jury had reached a verdict.
The former president will have to face challenges over his retention of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom as well as his alleged election interference through a phone call to a Georgia election official.
The only other Trump case that will be heard in the next two years is one that is being delayed in Washington D.C., Florida and Georgia.
The defense presented just two witnesses, including Robert Costello, an attorney who wanted to represent Cohen after Cohen’s home and office were searched by the FBI in 2018. Costello had been put on the stand to refute Cohen’s claim that Costello was pressuring Cohen to stay on Trump’s “team.” According to the leaked emails, Trump was making a decision on which of Cohen’s lawyers he wanted to pay, and that Costello was worried about appearing to be following instructions from Giuliani.
Cohen said he and Weisselberg met and discussed the agreement with Trump shortly before he left for Washington, on or about Jan. 17, 2020. Cohen said at the end of the meeting that Trump approved the deal and it would be a good ride in Washington. Cohen said he and Trump discussed the arrangement again, in early February, in the Oval Office. White House photos and records show that the two met in the Oval Office.
The payments would be described as legal retainers. Weisselberg is currently serving jail time for lying during Trump’s civil fraud trial.
Cohen tried to keep Daniels quiet by opening bank accounts and trying to pay her money, he testified. Cohen stated that Trump wanted to delay the payment until after the election, because he didn’t want Daniels to know about it.
handwritten notes and documents from the Trump Organization’s former comptroller Jeff McConnell were critical in the case because of their testimony about what happened after the election.
A number of other witnesses agreed that Trump paid to keep women voters on board to influence the election. Hicks testified Trump, by then in the White House, told her that it was better the story came out in 2018, rather than 2016.
In her testimony, Daniels said there was a “power imbalance” when, after leaving the suite’s restroom, she found Trump on the hotel bed in his underwear. That’s when, Daniels said, they had sex.
According to the group, Daniels threatened to go public with accusations she had had a sexual encounter withTrump in 2006 in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite during a celebrity golf tournament.
In early October 2016, according to the testimony of former Trump communications aide Hope Hicks, the campaign was rocked by the release of the Access Hollywood tape, where Trump could be heard boasting “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. It is recommended to grab them by the p**s.
In August 2015, two months after Trump announced his 2016 presidential bid, David Pecker, then the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower, according to testimony from Pecker and Cohen.
At that meeting, Pecker testified, it was agreed that he would be the “eyes and ears” of the Trump campaign. He was supposed to find bad stories from women and buy their rights, but never publish them.
The Manhattan Trial of Alvin Bragg and the Dynamics of the 21st-Century Donald Trump Presidential Campaign: An Extraordinary History from Times Opinion
More than a year after a grand jury indicted Trump, he was found guilty and became the first sitting president to face criminal charges.
Matthew Continetti What mattered was that this case was brought at all. When Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted Trump in April 2023, he not only established the dangerous precedent that local officials can bring criminal charges against former presidents, he annexed the 2024 presidential campaign to the legal system, with unknown and potentially hazardous consequences. Bragg undermined trust in the rule of law and helped Trump win a third consecutive Republican nomination. Bragg wasn’t able to defeat Trumpism. He revived it.
Opinion’s coverage of the guilty verdict in the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers reflect on this extraordinary development in American political history, on the moments and the dynamics that mattered most in the trial — and tease out its potential impact on the presidential election.