Conclusions from the final day of testimony in the criminal trial against Donald Trump

(CNN) — Today, Tuesday, the defense concluded the presentation of its case in the criminal trial of Donald Trump on charges of paying bribes, after about 90 minutes of testimony and without the former president taking his position.

Trump’s lawyers called two witnesses: a paralegal who entered phone records into evidence, and Robert Costello, an attorney who was in talks with Michael Cohen to represent him after the FBI raids of his home and office in 2018.

Publicly, Trump has left the door open to the possibility of testifying in his own defense, but his lawyers always seem to rule out this possibility.

In the end, the defense’s most important witness was Cohen, who testified for the prosecution’s case but was subjected to three days of cross-examination for more than eight hours combined.

Now the jury will have a week off for Memorial Day, and final arguments are scheduled for next Tuesday. The ruling is likely to be issued late next week.

These are the conclusions of the final day of testimony in Trump’s trial:

Trump does not take this position

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly hinted that he would take this position in his own defense.

“Well, I will do it if I have to,” Trump said in an April 25 interview on Newsmax.

“Maybe yeah, I would love to, I mean, I think so,” Trump told a Wisconsin television station on May 7.

But on Tuesday, Trump’s chance to testify came and went quickly, with attorney Todd Blanche telling the judge as soon as Costello walked off the stand: “The defense is taking a break.”

Ultimately, there wasn’t much ambiguity in the decision: The lawyers and judge had been calculating the timeline for the end of the trial over the past week on the assumption that Trump would not testify.

Part of the reason Trump is not expected to take the stand is the scope of the questioning. Prosecutors asked the judge to allow them to question the former president about a series of his misdeeds related to other cases in order to challenge Trump’s credibility as a witness.

After a routine hearing on what could be allowed — known as the Sandoval hearing — the judge ruled that prosecutors would have been allowed to question Trump about the $464 civil fraud ruling in the case brought by the New York attorney general last fall. Two violations of the judge’s gag order in that The case, and the rulings issued against Trump in two defamation cases, E. Jean Carroll, and the agreement Trump reached with the New York Attorney General that led to the dissolution of the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

(Credit: Jane Rosenberg)

Additionally, Trump would of course have been subjected to questions related to the case, including his alleged affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

All of this has added to the opinion of Trump and his lawyers that it is better for him not to stand on the witness stand.

The most important defense was cross-examination of Cohen

The cross-examination of Cohen, the prosecution’s final witness, took eight hours, four times longer than the entire defense presentation.

This difference highlights Cohen’s importance, both to the prosecution’s case against Trump and to the fact that the defense’s efforts to discredit the former Trump adviser as a witness could be key to an acquittal or a hung jury.

Blanche tried to undermine Cohen’s credibility, accusing him of fabricating his conversations with Trump, stealing from his former boss and continuing to lie even after he pleaded guilty to perjury in 2018.

The most dramatic moment of questioning came when Blanche confronted Cohen about a call she made to Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller on October 24, 2016 at 8:02 p.m., in which Cohen testified that Schiller put Trump on the phone and told Cohen he was following up on paying Daniels.

But Blanche showed Cohen text messages she exchanged with Schiller before and after that call, showing that she was dealing with a teenager who was making prank calls and asking Schiller for help.

“That was a lie,” Blanche claimed of Cohen’s testimony that he talked to Trump about going ahead with the secret money deal. “You were already talking to Mr. Schiller about the fact that you were receiving harassing calls from a 14-year-old boy, weren’t you?”

Cohen responded: “Part of it was 14 years old, but I know that Keith was with Mr. Trump at the time and there was likely more to it than just that. That’s what I remember based on the documents I reviewed.”

Prosecutors attempted to legitimize Cohen’s testimony, providing a C-SPAN screenshot that showed Trump leaving the stage of a rally in Florida with Schiller five minutes before the call.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger also tried to remind jurors that it was Trump, not Cohen, who was on trial in this case.

“Now, I know you might feel like you’re on trial here after the interrogation. Are you really on trial here?” Hofinger asked.
“No, ma’am,” Cohen replied.

After prosecutors finished their questioning, Blanche asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the case, a typical request from defendants that rarely succeeds. Blanche said Cohen lied in his testimony in this case and it should be dismissed.

“So you want me to take it out of the jury’s hands and decide, before it gets to the jury, that this person is, as a matter of law, so untrustworthy that the jury shouldn’t even consider him? Is that what she is suggesting?” ? Merchan asked.

Blanche responded, “The jury shouldn’t take into account all of his testimony. Of course. That’s exactly what we’re asking of the court.”

Merchan was skeptical and later asked Blanche: “You said his lies were ‘irrefutable,’ but do you think he would fool 12 New Yorkers into believing that lie?”

Costello faced a difficult experience

Opposing prosecutors’ efforts to block Costello from testifying, Trump’s lawyers said Costello would refute prosecutors’ suggestion that Trump waged a “pressure campaign” to intimidate Cohen into silence in 2018.

Merchan ruled that Costello could testify, but said he would not allow the testimony to become a mini-trial over whether there was in fact a pressure campaign on Cohen and how it affected Trump’s former lawyer at the time.

Trump’s lawyer, Emil Boff, tried to show that Cohen used Costello’s legal services as a conduit to contact Trump, even though he never signed a retainer agreement and eventually went with another lawyer to handle his federal case.

In their first meeting, Costello said Cohen was “completely manic” and suicidal after an FBI raid on his property. According to Costello, Cohen said 10 to 12 times during the meeting: “I swear to God, Bob, I have nothing against Donald Trump.”

Costello’s testimony before the jury Monday quickly led to tension between Costello and the judge. Merchan cleared the courtroom to reprimand Costello for pointing and muttering about the judge’s rulings that limited what he could say on the stand.

During questioning, Hoffinger sought to discredit Costello, suggesting that he was more aligned with Trump’s interests than Cohen was when he was advising him in the spring of 2018.

Hofinger suggested that Costello, who was in frequent contact with his close friend Rudy Giuliani, was part of a pressure campaign to keep Cohen in line. Costello admitted that he offered Cohen an informal channel with Trump through Giuliani, but said that was to Cohen’s advantage.

Closing arguments are set for Tuesday

The two sides return to court Tuesday afternoon, without jurors present, to discuss what instructions the judge will give the jury before deliberations next week.

The court will then remain dark for a week, a scheduling decision chosen by Merchan so that the final stages of the trial would not be interrupted by a four-day Memorial Day weekend.

Merchan told jurors they will return next Tuesday for closing arguments, which are expected to last all day. Once the jury receives its instructions, Trump’s fate will be in their hands.