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IPFS News Link • Courtroom and Trials

Prosecutors rest their case in Trump's hush money trial

• https://www.politico.com, ERICA ORDEN

Prosecutors in Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial rested their case against the former president Monday, bringing an end to more than four weeks of testimony from witnesses they've called in their attempt to convince the jury that he orchestrated a scheme to cover up a payment to a porn star.

The conclusion of the case from the Manhattan district attorney's office moves the trial one step closer to determining whether Trump will become a convicted felon as he runs for president as the presumptive Republican nominee. Though Trump is indicted in three other criminal cases, the chances that any of those will go to trial before the November election have dwindled in recent weeks.

In the Manhattan case, Trump's team will now have a chance to call their own witnesses and introduce their own evidence. Trump is not obligated to call any witnesses, and the extent of his defense remains unclear.

His lawyers have signaled they may call at least one expert witness on campaign finance laws, but the judge sharply limited what that expert can testify about. And they have left open the possibility that Trump himself might testify — a significant risk for a defendant with questionable credibility and a history of doing himself no favors on the witness stand.

Prosecutors rested their case at the conclusion of their final witness, Trump's former "fixer," Michael Cohen, who testified for four days.

Cohen told the jury about what he described as Trump's direct approval of and involvement in falsifying business records to mask a $130,000 payment Cohen made on Trump's behalf to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election. The hush money silenced Daniels' claim that she had sex with Trump a decade earlier.


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm