NEW YORK — On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s lawyers took a break from their defense so that the former president could not testify in his New York hush-money trial.
After former federal prosecutor Robert Costello spoke, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge, “Your honor, the defense rests.” Costello had been called to question the credibility of the prosecution’s main witness.
The jury was sent home until May 28, when the closing arguments are scheduled to happen. However, the lawyers will be back later Tuesday to talk about how the judge will instruct the jurors on how to deliberate. As Trump left the courthouse, he didn’t stop to talk, and when asked why he wasn’t testifying, he didn’t answer. He had said before that he wanted to explain himself in court to fight what he sees as politically motivated charges.
The former president is being tried on 34 counts of felony business record fraud. The jury could start deliberating as early as next week, after hearing evidence for more than four weeks.
Authorities have said that Trump planned to hide bad news about his 2016 presidential campaign and then lied about it in internal business records to hide it.
Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche argued there was nothing illegal about soliciting a tabloid’s help to run positive stories about Trump, run negative stories about his opponents, and identify potentially damaging stories before they were published.
Trump is the first former president of the United States to be charged with a crime. He has pleaded not guilty and said he did nothing wrong.
The charges come from records kept by the Trump Organization that show payments to Cohen were marked as legal fees. Prosecutors say they were really payments to repay a $130,000 hush money payment made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from saying she had a sexual encounter with Trump before the 2016 election. Trump says they did not do anything sexual.
As the court was leaving for the day, Trump said, “They have no case.” “There’s no crime.”
Lawyers for the defense asked the judge to throw out the charges before the jurors even started deliberating on Monday, after the day’s work. They said the prosecutors had not proven their case. The defense has said that Trump was shutting down what they call “false and scurrilous claims” to protect his family, not his campaign.
Blanche, the defense lawyer, said that asking a tabloid to help him run positive stories about Trump, negative stories about his opponents, and stories that could hurt Trump before they were published was not illegal. Blanche said that no one “had any criminal intent.”
“How is it illegal to keep a false story from the voters?” Blanche asked.
Matthew Colangelo, the prosecutor, replied that “the trial evidence overwhelmingly supports each element” of the alleged crimes and that the case should go to the jury.
The judge didn’t decide right away on the defense’s request. People often ask for things like this in criminal cases, but they are rarely granted.
