(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York City, where he is facing felony charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. It marks the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been tried on criminal charges.
Trump last April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Here’s how the news is developing:
May 29, 9:03 AM
Reporters take their place for today’s proceedings
About 60 members of the press have filled up the courtroom’s wooden pews ahead of today’s proceedings.
As reporters settled in, a court reporter used an office chair to wheel a three-foot stack of printed transcripts into the courtroom.
She left the precarious slack of binders at the front of the courtroom near the jury box, prompting light applause from the reporters in the gallery.
May 29, 7:01 AM
Jury deliberations scheduled to get underway
The jury in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial is scheduled to begin deliberating the outcome of the case this morning after lengthy closing arguments yesterday.
Judge Juan Merchan will begin the proceedings at 10 a.m. ET when he instructs the jury about the law in the case — a vital process that Merchan estimates will take approximately an hour.
Once the jury is charged, they can begin deliberating whether prosecutors met their burden by proving that Trump falsified 34 business records to further a criminal conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.
The jury heard nearly eight hours of summations yesterday when defense lawyer Todd Blanche and prosecutor Joshua Steinglass delivered marathon closing arguments.
Blanche told jurors that prosecutors failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt due in part to their reliance on the testimony of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who he described as the “human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”
Steinglass argued that Trump’s alleged falsification of records ahead of the election amounted to a “subversion of democracy” by hiding critical information from voters.
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