Tuesday, May 28, 2024
May 28, 2024, 6:59 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
The judge’s mood remains light. With the jury out of the room, the prosecution and defense argue about whether Joshua Steinglass can talk about Stormy Daniels’s state of mind.
Justice Merchan hears the lawyers out and sides with the defense, telling Steinglass that he’s gone as far as he needs to go in talking about Daniels being intimidated by Trump, and that no further argument to that effect need be made.
May 28, 2024, 6:59 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
We are taking what the judge, smiling, promises the jurors is our last break of the day.
NYT on Steinglass: “Over more than four meticulous hours…”
Yeah, “over four meticulous hours”, Joshua Steinglass never said the word
“Felony”
Tell me, Quasis, has he ever said it?
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass, describing how Michael Cohen discussed having pleaded guilty to federal crimes, hews very close to the trial transcript. When Steinglass's colleague Susan Hoffinger questioned Cohen about those pleas, she made sure to ask him if he had committed crimes at Trump’s behest. Cohen said that he had, and Steinglass just read significant portions of that testimony aloud, 🙄before pivoting to Trump’s tweets blasting Cohen shortly after he pleaded guilty.
Merchan smiling
May 28, 2024, 6:33 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Seeing Merchan smiling was interesting just now. I’d expected that he would have a busy day dealing with objections from both sides. …
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Seeing Merchan smiling was interesting just now. I’d expected that he would have a busy day dealing with objections from both sides. …
And then Steinglass asking the jury if he could go on. To me, these are signs that Steinglass essentially has taken control of the courtroom. He has the judge’s trust and asking the jurors himself means he feels that he has the jurors trust.
May 28, 2024, 6:36 p.m. ET
Maggie HabermanReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now in hour five of his closing argument, breaks included. This is awfully long…
Maggie HabermanReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now in hour five of his closing argument, breaks included. This is awfully long…
May 28, 2024, 6:32 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Justice Merchan is smiling at a sidebar as the lawyers discuss the schedule for the remainder of the day. Joshua Steinglass just left the sidebar chuckling a bit and asked the jurors directly if they were good to go for a little bit longer. At least some must have signaled they were, because he is continuing. We don’t get any update on how much material he has left or how long it will take.
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Justice Merchan is smiling at a sidebar as the lawyers discuss the schedule for the remainder of the day. Joshua Steinglass just left the sidebar chuckling a bit and asked the jurors directly if they were good to go for a little bit longer. At least some must have signaled they were, because he is continuing. We don’t get any update on how much material he has left or how long it will take.
STEINGLASS, YOU GOT TO NAIL THIS DOWN. SAY "FELONY"
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 6:27 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now describing evidence from February 2018, and he is competing not only with the defense but with jurors' flagging attention spans as the clock moves toward 6:30. One juror just rubbed his eyes, another’s are heavily lidded. Four jurors in the back row are still paying close attention, but the signs of fatigue are definitely becoming more visible.
Is this the felony smoking gun?
I don't know. If it is I missed it, I think the Times' reporters missed it. Steinglass has to put "felony" in the same sentence with "smoking gun."
May 28, 2024, 5:35 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
An extremely interesting move by Joshua Steinglass just now — he moved very quickly over some of the testimony most damning to Trump, because it came from Michael Cohen. And now he is referring to exhibits that Jeffrey McConney, a longtime loyal Trump employee, testified about: Allen Weisselberg’s notes setting up the repayments.
Steinglass refers to these exhibits as “the smoking guns” of the prosecution’s argument, saying they “completely blow out of the water the claim the money paid to Cohen” was for legal services.
May 28, 2024, 5:30 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass has moved the action to January 2017, the month that Trump was inaugurated. He is describing a meeting between Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg, then the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, who Cohen testified had made the arrangements to reimburse Cohen for the hush-money payment. “Right on the bank statement, Weisselberg and Cohen calculated all the money that was owed to Cohen,” Steinglass says.
Kate Christobek
May 28, 2024, 6:16 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now focusing on the passages of Trump’s books which were read to the jury during the course of the trial. In the books, Trump described himself as a frugal micromanager who advised that one should always make sure to see and question invoices.
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 6:18 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
Some more quotes from Trump's books: “No detail is too small to consider” and, after talking about his preference for personally signing checks, “When you sign a check yourself, you’re seeing what’s really going on inside your business.”
If the election were held today...
Of course, we would be toast. The point of that Politico article was that when you look into the forest on the horizon to Election Day, there is no discernible path for us. The trees of a forest make a wall at a distance. Hunters know this. Only when you get closer do you see paths between the trees, and game, if it is there. Is the trophy game there for the president? I don't know, I can't see it from here.
NYT lede right now
Prosecutor Says Trump Tried to ‘Hoodwink the American Voter’
Hoodwink is not a crime. Hoodwink is what a political campaign does.
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 6:08 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
One of the tricks in Joshua Steinglass’s arsenal is a sudden tone switch — sometimes, to get jurors’ attention, he suddenly moves toward colloquial language, sounding as if he’s had a beer at a bar. ...
Steinglass truly is a superb lawyer. But...the jury. They're worn out. I fear his "tricks" are being lost. He has got to prove the felony crime.
Merchan said during the break that the jurors look fine. They're not.
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 6:04 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass appears to be seeking to punctuate his arguments with plenty of memorable lines and jokey asides. “The defendant didn’t actually pay a lawyer, he paid a porn star by funneling money through a lawyer” he says at one point.
To hold their interest. This is unfair to the prosecution.
Maggie Haberman
May 28, 2024, 6:04 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass is conscious the jurors are starting to look fatigued. He makes a joke about not going through all the remaining documents and says it will be limited.
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 5:55 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass argues that, if the defense's arguments that Cohen was being paid for legal services held up, Trump would have ended up paying Cohen at a rate that would have added up to more than $100 million annually. Steinglass says that, in lieu of actual payment, Cohen received a fancy title: personal lawyer to the president.
Kate Christobek
May 28, 2024, 5:53 p.m. ET
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is addressing Todd Blanche’s claim from this morning that Michael Cohen did other legal work for Trump in 2017. He argues that Cohen did less than 10 hours of legal work that year. Steinglass points out that Cohen spent more time being cross-examined during this trial than he spent doing legal work in 2017.
May 28, 2024, 5:56 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass notes that Trump himself has, several times in several places, “admitted” that the payments to Cohen were reimbursements, not payments for legal services. This would not be a devastating argument if the defense had proposed an alternative theory of the case. But given that the defense has argued the $420,000 sent to Cohen was in fact a payment for legal services, these admissions from Trump himself are not good for the former president and his legal team.
The wear 'em out defense
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 5:51 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is working overtime — literally — to make the details about the documents prosecutors say are false seem interesting. But the jurors' eyes are beginning to glaze over a bit. Some are still looking at Steinglass, but several are fidgeting, tilting their heads and glancing around, signs that a jury is being pushed to its limit.
Okay, here is the bedrock crime: categorizing the hush money as legal fees, creating a false biz record
Two things the prosecution must always show: the crime was committed and the defendant committed the crime. They have proved both with the biz records. Have they proved the felony, with intent to commit another felony (e.g. election fraud)?
May 28, 2024, 5:46 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass…on one of the defense’s closing arguments, that the existence at the Trump Organization of financial documents related to the charged crimes shows that they were not crimes.
“You almost have to laugh at the way Mr. Blanche explained it to you,” he says. “They would have destroyed evidence — committed another crime — to hide this crime, but because they didn’t do that, and these documents exist” that’s evidence that there was no crime.
May 28, 2024, 5:46 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass…on one of the defense’s closing arguments, that the existence at the Trump Organization of financial documents related to the charged crimes shows that they were not crimes.
“You almost have to laugh at the way Mr. Blanche explained it to you,” he says. “They would have destroyed evidence — committed another crime — to hide this crime, but because they didn’t do that, and these documents exist” that’s evidence that there was no crime.
May 28, 2024, 5:35 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
An extremely interesting move by Joshua Steinglass just now — he moved very quickly over some of the testimony most damning to Trump, because it came from Michael Cohen. And now he is referring to exhibits that Jeffrey McConney, a longtime loyal Trump employee, testified about: Allen Weisselberg’s notes setting up the repayments.
Steinglass refers to these exhibits as “the smoking guns” of the prosecution’s argument, saying they “completely blow out of the water the claim the money paid to Cohen” was for legal services.
May 28, 2024, 5:30 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass has moved the action to January 2017, the month that Trump was inaugurated. He is describing a meeting between Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg, then the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, who Cohen testified had made the arrangements to reimburse Cohen for the hush-money payment. “Right on the bank statement, Weisselberg and Cohen calculated all the money that was owed to Cohen,” Steinglass says.
May 28, 2024, 5:34 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass then highlights Michael Cohen’s testimony implicating Trump in the charged crimes. He shows jurors, using highlighted transcript pages, Cohen’s testimony that Trump not only approved the arrangement but was aware that the reimbursements would be classified as payments for legal services.
If jurors believe Cohen’s testimony here, the prosecutors will be in a very strong position. But it’s worth noting that the documentary evidence that supported all of Steinglass’s arguments from October 2016 is in short supply here.
May 28, 2024, 5:28 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
As we start up again, Joshua Steinglass…says that Trump, after getting elected, still had to ensure that no one found out about the conspiracy. “But here’s the problem,” Steinglass says. “Michael Cohen was out $130,000.”
Steinglass says that Trump could not just write Cohen a check…Cohen…”wanted his money back.”
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
An extremely interesting move by Joshua Steinglass just now — he moved very quickly over some of the testimony most damning to Trump, because it came from Michael Cohen. And now he is referring to exhibits that Jeffrey McConney, a longtime loyal Trump employee, testified about: Allen Weisselberg’s notes setting up the repayments.
Steinglass refers to these exhibits as “the smoking guns” of the prosecution’s argument, saying they “completely blow out of the water the claim the money paid to Cohen” was for legal services.
May 28, 2024, 5:30 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass has moved the action to January 2017, the month that Trump was inaugurated. He is describing a meeting between Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg, then the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, who Cohen testified had made the arrangements to reimburse Cohen for the hush-money payment. “Right on the bank statement, Weisselberg and Cohen calculated all the money that was owed to Cohen,” Steinglass says.
May 28, 2024, 5:34 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass then highlights Michael Cohen’s testimony implicating Trump in the charged crimes. He shows jurors, using highlighted transcript pages, Cohen’s testimony that Trump not only approved the arrangement but was aware that the reimbursements would be classified as payments for legal services.
If jurors believe Cohen’s testimony here, the prosecutors will be in a very strong position. But it’s worth noting that the documentary evidence that supported all of Steinglass’s arguments from October 2016 is in short supply here.
May 28, 2024, 5:28 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
As we start up again, Joshua Steinglass…says that Trump, after getting elected, still had to ensure that no one found out about the conspiracy. “But here’s the problem,” Steinglass says. “Michael Cohen was out $130,000.”
Steinglass says that Trump could not just write Cohen a check…Cohen…”wanted his money back.”
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 4:36 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
One thing Joshua Steinglass has to do — and I assume he will do it in a focused way in the next several hours — is show the jurors that the alleged Trump Tower conspiracy between David Pecker, Michael Cohen and Trump involved using “unlawful means” to aid Trump’s election.
Steinglass just pulled out one of the potential unlawful means, a document called a business information overview that Cohen created as he sought to obtain the cash to pay Stormy Daniels.
“This isn’t, ‘Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.’ It’s ‘Oh my God, the democracy might end.’”
Dems in full-blown ‘freakout’ over Biden
A pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects, even among officeholders and strategists who had previously expressed confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump.
[I am one of those previously confident. We have spent tens if millions of dollars in the last month or so and have not moved the polls.]
… five months from the election, anxiety has morphed into palpable trepidation, according to more than a dozen party leaders and operatives. …worries have surged about Biden’s prospects.
… Biden’s stubbornly poor polling and the stakes of the election “are creating the freakout,”…
[It’s the reason why he agreed to debates. It’s getting desperate.]
Despite everything, Trump is running ahead of Biden in most battleground states. He raised far more money in April…
The concern has metastasized in recent days as Trump jaunted to some of the country’s most liberal territories, including New Jersey and New York…
While he’s long lagged Biden in cash on hand, Trump’s fundraising outpaced the president’s by $25 million last month, and included a record-setting $50.5 million haul…
One adviser to major Democratic Party donors provided a running list that has been shared with funders of nearly two dozen reasons why Biden could lose…
“Donors ask me on an hourly basis about what I think,” the adviser said, calling it “so much easier to show them, so while they read it, I can pour a drink.”
The adviser added, “The list of why we ‘could’ win is so small I don’t even need to keep the list on my phone.”
…
“There’s still a path to win this, but they don’t look like a campaign that’s embarking on that path right now,” said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who’s worked on multiple presidential campaigns. “If the frame of this race is, ‘What was better, the 3.5 years under Biden or four years under Trump,’ we lose that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
…
In the swing state of Michigan, Democratic state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky suggested Biden’s standing is so tenuous that down-ballot Democrats can’t rely in November “on the top of the ticket to pull us along.”
…
Whatever the Biden campaign has been doing over the past two months — and it’s a lot of activity, including $25 million in swing-state ad spending, according to AdImpact — it has had only a limited effect. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s average job-approval rating on March 7, the date of his State of the Union Address, was 38.1 percent. As of Friday, it’s 38.4 percent.
And his standing against Trump has also changed little. On April 22, the day Trump’s criminal trial began, the presumptive GOP nominee held a 0.3-point lead in national polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump is up about a point since then, currently leading Biden by 1.4 points in the FiveThirtyEight average.
Trump, meanwhile, has already started his incursion into safe blue states. His campaign’s psychological warfare in New York, California and New Jersey — where House districts will determine control of Congress’ lower chamber — is spiking Democrats’ already-elevated blood pressure.
“New York Democrats need to wake up,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.
…
Levine has been something of a Paul Revere in New York, sounding alarms two years ago when a Trump-aligned Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lee Zeldin, appeared to be gaining on Kathy Hochul, the moderate Democratic incumbent. Hochul narrowly held him off.
…
Biden’s weaker numbers bear that out. A Siena College poll released Wednesday showed Biden leading Trump in New York by only 9 points — 47 to 38 percent among registered voters. Four years ago, Biden won the state by 23 points.
To that end, Biden released TV and radio ads in the Empire State on Thursday…
Trump has railed against blue-state officials, starting with the justice system in New York. In California, he dispatched his daughter-in-law, Lara, and one of his sons, Eric…
…
And as in New York, California Democrats are bracing for more incoming from Trump.
This is not good for the prosecution
Jonah Bromwich
May 28, 2024, 4:07 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich Reporting from inside the courthouse
There’ll be a half hour break today around 5 p.m. and then the prosecution's closing will resume at 5:30, the judge just said. After that, he added, we’ll see how everyone is doing. There have been several audible groans in the courtroom as it becomes more and more clear just how late we may go.
May 28, 2024, 4:07 p.m. ET
Wesley Parnell Reporting from inside the courthouse
Members of the public attending today’s closings are feeling the long day. They are discussing amongst themselves and making friends. One woman is dancing in place in the fifth row of the overflow room, getting the blood flowing.
Kate Christobek
May 28, 2024, 3:49 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek Reporting from inside the courthouse
We’re currently on a break. After the jurors were excused, Justice Merchan asked Joshua Steinglass how much more time he needed for the rest of his closing argument. He responded that he’s about one third of the way done.
Wow, a presidential candidate scheming to influence his election Wow
May 28, 2024, 3:46 p.m. ET
Kate ChristobekReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is playing a recording the jurors heard earlier in the trial — a conversation that Cohen secretly recorded between himself and Trump discussing the Karen McDougal deal in September 2016.
Steinglass argues that the conversation shows Trump’s “cavalier willingness” to hide this payoff and “unequivocally shows a presidential candidate actively engaging in a scheme to influence the election.”
In other Trump trial news…
Judge Cannon rejects request for gag order against Donald Trump in classified docs case
In a brief order, Cannon slammed prosecutors for not following the court’s rules by failing to meaningfully confer with Trump’s defense lawyers about a potential gag order before making the request.
Denied without prejudice may save her ass. If Smith confers meaningfully she may grant it. It may prevent Smith from taking her up.
That’s exactly right
May 28, 2024, 3:36 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
[Steinglass] has to highlight for jurors the “unlawful means” by which prosecutors argue Trump conspired to aid his own campaign. …
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
[Steinglass] has to highlight for jurors the “unlawful means” by which prosecutors argue Trump conspired to aid his own campaign. …
May 28, 2024, 3:28 p.m. ET
Jonah BromwichReporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is highlighting David Pecker’s testimony that he discussed Karen McDougal with Trump. Steinglass says it offered “powerful evidence” of Trump’s involvement in her hush-money deal, and showed he knew about the payment and was actively involved in arranging it.
Steinglass also notes that the testimony does not rely on Michael Cohen in any way.
NYT headline right now:
Prosecutor Portrays Trump’s Actions as a Fraud on the American People
Am I wrong? Was the Enquirer criminally prosecuted for catching and killing these stories? They were convicted as a corporation of something, tax fraud, I think. Illegal campaign contribution, maybe. But a fraud on the American people? They weren't convicted of that, were they?
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