Inside the court room as the Trump jury reached its verdict
US Court Reporter Phil Hirschkorn reports for ITV News from inside Donald Trump's New York trial on the dramatic moments leading up to the guilty verdict
In their second day of deliberations, the 12 jurors deciding the outcome of former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial delivered their verdict Thursday – guilty on all counts of falsifying business records – making Trump the first U.S. president convicted of felonies.
Just 10 minutes before its expected adjournment time, at 4.20pm ET (9.20pm GMT), the jury sent the court a note that it had reached a verdict and needed half an hour to fill out the form.
Trump sat impassively at the defense table with his eyes closed as the court clerk went through 34 counts with the jury foreman, originally from Ireland, who said "guilty" 34 times. It took only a couple of minutes to get through the sheet – one count each for the 11 invoices, 11 checks, and 12 ledger entries at the heart of the case.
The false business records disguised the reimbursement in 2017 to former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for paying $130,000 (£102,300) to pornographic movie actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to sign a non-disclosure agreement about a 2006 tryst Daniels says occurred with Trump after meeting him at a golf resort in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Trump, 77, denied the sexual encounter and all criminal charges.
“There was no fraud, there was no conspiracy. It's that simple," Trump told reporters upon arriving at court on Thursday. “I just want to say that this is a very sad day for America. The whole world is watching.”
New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan thanked the jurors for their service and excused them, saying he would meet with them privately for feedback on what went well during the trial from their perspective and what could have gone better. He said he would not discuss the facts of the case or their deliberations.
Trump stood, along with everyone in the courtroom, as the jurors filed right past him and out of the courtroom.
Lead defense attorney Todd Blanche made a motion asking the judge to set aside the verdict and enter a judgment of acquittal, citing Cohen’s testimony. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass opposed the motion, citing the entire trial record. The judge denied it.
Blanche asked for a sentencing date in late July partly because of criminal charges Trump faces in other jurisdictions, namely Florida, where a pretrial hearing is scheduled at the end of June in the federal case for mishandling classified documents.
Merchan scheduled sentencing for July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Trump is expected to be anointed his party’s presidential nominee for the third time.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said after the verdict, “While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors – by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.”
The jury began its day by listening to Judge Merchan deliver a portion of his instructions a second time and then court transcribers read back four sections of trial testimony - all at their request.
Daniels, 45, spent two days on the witness stand telling her story. She was one of 20 prosecution witnesses during the previous five weeks. The jury heard long closing arguments on Tuesday.
The jury had particular interest on Thursday in rehearing portions of testimony from the first witness, David Pecker, a longtime Trump friend and the retired CEO of American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid and other magazines.
Pecker and Cohen both testified about a crucial moment in the prosecution narrative about an election interference conspiracy - the August 2015 meeting Pecker and Cohen say they attended with Trump at his Trump Tower office, two months after he launched his first White House run.
Pecker and Cohen told the jury at that meeting, AMI agreed to act as a covert operative for the Trump campaign in part by suppressing Trump stories about womanizing and infidelity.
"I said I would be your eyes and ears," Pecker told Trump, according to his testimony read back out loud Thursday. "I said, anything I hear in the marketplace - if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear anything about women selling stories - I would notify Mr Cohen," Pecker continued. “They would not get published.”
Pecker said Trump and Cohen were “pleased” with his scouting mission and pledge to print campaign stories favorable to Trump.
"I said I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents" for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and for Hillary and Bill Clinton, Pecker testified.
Pecker described the 20 to 25-minute meeting as “just an agreement among friends” where nothing was put in writing.
Pecker essentially pre-corroborated Cohen’s testimony three weeks later on the same topic.
Cohen described the arrangement with Pecker as “beneficial.”
“He would be able to help us know in advance what was coming out and try to stop it from coming out,” Cohen recalled.
The term “catch and kill” was not discussed, but the technique - buying the exclusive rights to a story only to bury it - would come into play in the following months.
The jury wanted to hear again Pecker’s recollection of his discussions with Trump and Cohen about the “catch and kill” deal AMI executed with Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model who came forward in the summer of 2016 to say she had a 10-month affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007, after Trump had married former first lady Melania Trump, and she had given birth to their son, Barron.
AMI paid $150,000 (£118,000) for the rights to McDougal’s story, as well as for her to appear on fitness magazine covers and byline articles. Cohen promised Trump would reimburse AMI.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it,” Cohen told him, according to Pecker’s testimony.
Trump never reimbursed AMI. He has denied the affair with McDougal.
The jury requested to hear again Pecker’s testimony about a phone conversation with Trump about the McDougal negotiations.
Pecker said the call occurred after he and Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard initially talked to Cohen about the story and rival bidders for it.
“Karen is a nice girl,” Trump told the publisher, Pecker recalled in testimony read back to the jury Thursday.
“Is it true that a Mexican group is looking to buy her story for $8 million?” Trump asked. Pecker told him that was not true.
Trump asked, “What did you think I should do?” according to Pecker.
“I think you should buy the story and take it off the market,” he replied, Pecker testified. “I believed the story was true. It would be very embarrassing to himself and his campaign.”
Cohen testified he surreptitiously recorded an in-person conversation with Trump about the McDougal deal to show Pecker he was working on the AMI reimbursement.
The jury asked for headphones and speakers to listen better to audio-visual files in evidence stored on a pair of laptops for them to review.
In reprising his instructions, Judge Merchan told jurors on Thursday that because Cohen is regarded as “an accomplice” to the falsification of business records - for instance, he prepared the invoices cited in the charges - under the law, the jury could not convict Trump on his testimony unless it is supported by corroborating evidence.
Attacks on Cohen’s credibility were the centerpiece of Trump’s defense, which has tried to distance Trump from the financial records and checks generated by his employees, who testified about how the company paid Cohen $420,000 (£330,000) in $35,000 (£27,500) monthly installments in 2017.
Trump signed nine of the 11 checks after he was inaugurated president.
The defense described that money paid to Cohen as proper legal fees, under a retainer agreement, for the man serving as the then-president’s personal attorney outside the White House.
Prosecutors said there was no retainer agreement and described the Cohen payments as reimbursement to cover up the Daniels deal.
On the 34 counts of falsifying business records, Merchan told the jury, that Trump could be convicted for any fraud carried out by others, if the jury found Trump "solicited, requested, commanded, importuned, or aided” the commission of the crime.
At the same time, Trump could be found guilty if the jury believed he intended to “make or cause” the false business records to be created.
For the counts, normally misdemeanors, to be bumped up to felonies, the jury was required to find the business fraud occurred in furtherance of another crime that Trump intended to “commit, aid, or conceal”.
Prosecutors mainly pointed to conspiracy to interfere with an election as the other crime, such as by violating Federal Election Campaign Act contribution limits or tax laws or by falsifying other business records.
Those other records could include Cohen’s personal bank records of the money transfers to execute the Daniels deal, transactions he attested were for real estate and legal services, or Trump Organization tax records that listed his Daniels expense reimbursement as unrelated income.
Trump could be held criminally liable for causing business fraud, not just doing it himself.
Merchan explained to the jury on Wednesday it had to be unanimous in finding Trump falsified records and did so with the intent to commit or conceal another crime, but the jury did not have to be unanimous on what the other crime was.
Exiting the courthouse after the verdict, Trump told reporters, “This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people.”
Bragg said, “The only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken.”
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