NEW YORK — Jurors were still seated in the courtroom for closing arguments in the hush money trial against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday as prosecutors mocked the defense’s “laughable” closing arguments from earlier in the day.
The 18-member jury, which has six alternate members, appeared to pay close attention as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said defense attorneys for Trump went to “laughable lengths in a feeble attempt to cast doubt” on the veracity of the testimony and documents revealed to jurors earlier in the trial.
Steinglass pointed to a footnote from a 2018 Office of Government Ethics form while laughing about how the defense cited the form to suggest that all of Trump’s business records were legally sound.
The footnote from the form stated, “ln 2016 expenses were incurred by one of Donald J. Trump’s attorneys, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and Mr. Trump fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017.”
“If he was still doing legal work, why wasn’t he paid a dime in 2018?” Steinglass asked. “When the reimbursement was done, the payments stopped.”
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records related to reimbursement payments he made to Cohen for the hush money Cohen paid to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence ahead of the 2016 election about an alleged affair with Trump that the former president denies. Prosecutors introduced as evidence 11 checks, 12 ledger entries, and 11 invoices used to pay Cohen a total of $420,000 in 2017.
Steinglass at one point Tuesday evening pointed out that his closing arguments had been going on for an extraordinary length of time given that he had been talking to the jury since 2 p.m. local time and the closing arguments were continuing as 8 p.m. approached.
“I know what you’re thinking: Is this guy going to go through every single month’s worth of checks?” Steinglass said to the jury. “The answer is no.”
Trump posted to Truth Social on Tuesday, calling this section of the prosecution’s closing arguments “BORING!”
Andrew Cherkasky, a New York-based attorney and former federal prosecutor, told the Washington Examiner that “there is a saying among trial lawyers: ‘I’ve heard a good closing argument, I’ve heard a long closing argument, but I’ve never heard a good long closing argument.’”
New York lawyer Rebecca Rose told Fox News the prosecution appears to be attempting to “throw a lot at the jury” in an effort to convince them through the prosecution’s apparent thoroughness.
“I think their strategy is: Throw a lot at the jury, make the closing seem so long that the jury will start to say, ‘Well, that closing was so long, they must have had a lot to say, they must have proved their case,’” Rose said.
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The jury took a break just before 7 p.m. after Steinglass asked whether the closing arguments could continue a little longer. They indicated the prosecution may move ahead into the evening, according to CNN.
Presiding Judge Juan Merchan told prosecutors that the jury has been under the impression that they would work up until 8 p.m., telling the prosecution, “You’ve been going for four hours now,” and suggested that prosecutors finish by 8 p.m.
