May 21, 2024, 2:27 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
To begin, if you are seeking to follow this conference, you need to know that the 34 falsifying business records charges against Trump are felony charges because prosecutors say he used the false records to try to conceal a second crime.
May 21, 2024, 2:23 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Just to give you a sense of how legally wonky this charge conference will be, we start with the judge asking the defense to argue on behalf of one of its requests: to add the word “willfully” in two places to the instructions that will be given to the jury on a federal election law that is not among the charges.
Charge conferences are often complex, but the knotty charges brought against Trump by the Manhattan district attorney’s office mean we're in for a particularly abstruse affair today.
May 21, 2024, 2:23 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
For this reason, we will strive to give our readers high-level updates that we hope will help them understand what both sides want, and where the judge seems to be leaning.
