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May 28, 2024, 7:07 p.m. ET
Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess
Closing arguments have extended into the evening. Here’s the latest.
A prosecutor in the criminal case of Donald J. Trump is making a final pitch to the jury to find him guilty, meticulously describing a scheme on the eve of the 2016 election to muzzle a p*rn star’s account of a sexual encounter and “hoodwink the American voter.”
The prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, said that in reimbursing his onetime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the $130,000 payment, Mr. Trump had falsified business records and perpetrated a fraud against the American people. “The defendant didn’t actually pay a lawyer, he paid a p*rn star by funneling money through a lawyer,” Mr. Steinglass said.
The lead lawyer for Mr. Trump, Todd Blanche, spent much of his closing argument earlier Tuesday attacking the credibility of Mr. Cohen, who testified that he was acting on Mr. Trump’s orders and that the deal to reimburse him had been confirmed in an Oval Office meeting. Mr. Blanche call Mr. Cohen “the greatest liar of all time” and asserted that there was “not a shred of evidence” that Mr. Trump had plotted to falsify records.
Here’s what to know:
The charges: Mr. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, which prosecutors say Mr. Trump used to conceal the repayment of Mr. Cohen as legal fees. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and says he never had sex with Ms. Daniels. Here’s a refresher on the case.
The prosecution’s closing: Mr. Steinglass told jurors that suppressing Ms. Daniels’s account “could very well be what got President Trump elected” in 2016. But he framed it as just one part of a broader effort to influence the election, recounting testimony by Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the longtime publisher of The National Enquirer, about a pact with Mr. Trump to buy and bury negative stories.
The tabloid, which Mr. Steinglass said served as “a covert arm” of the Trump campaign, struck a deal that suppressed the account of Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who said she’d had an affair with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Steinglass then described how a tape from “Access Hollywood” on which Mr. Trump bragged about groping women set off a panic inside the Trump campaign, and sent Mr. Cohen scurrying to keep Ms. Daniels under wraps after Mr. Pecker declined to buy another story. She signed a nondisclosure agreement 11 days before the election.
He presented what he described as the “smoking guns” of the scheme: notes from Mr. Trump’s then-chief financial officer laying out the plans to reimburse Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Steinglass also sought to blunt attacks on the credibility of Mr. Cohen, whom the defense portrayed in its closing argument as a liar serving as the foundation of the case. He argued that Mr. Cohen’s duplicity appealed to Mr. Trump “because he was willing to lie and cheat on Mr. Trump’s behalf.”
The defense’s summation: Mr. Blanche called for jurors to reach a “very quick and easy” verdict. He argued that there was nothing false about the documents because Mr. Cohen had in fact performed legal work — and suggested that Mr. Trump had little reason to pay attention to them in any case, because he was the “leader of the free world” at the time.
But Mr. Blanche’s closing, which took a little under three hours, was at times perplexing. He sometimes called extra attention to elements of the prosecution’s case and repeatedly emphasized Mr. Cohen’s position as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer even as he was impugning his character. He also played down prosecutors’ contention that Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Pecker had engaged in a criminal conspiracy.
“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy,” he said. Here’s a recap of the defense’s closing argument.
Biden trolls Trump: During Mr. Blanche’s closing argument, President Biden’s campaign held a news conference outside the courthouse with the actor Robert De Niro and two former Capitol Police officers. It was the most direct reference Mr. Biden’s campaign has made to Mr. Trump’s legal troubles after mostly sticking to sly insinuations. Read about the news conference.
What happens next: The judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, said he hoped to finish closing arguments on Tuesday. That could set the stage for the jury to begin deliberations on Wednesday. If convicted, Mr. Trump faces up to four years in prison.
May 28, 2024, 7:12 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Justice Merchan thanks the jurors for their flexibility again and calls Joshua Steinglass back to the lectern. Before they returned, the judge told the prosecutor that he needed to wrap up — at least for the day — by 8 p.m. If he does not conclude by then, it sounded as if it was possible that Steinglass would have to conclude tomorrow.
So we’ll see if he makes it under the wire, as the clock crawls on toward 7:15 and the light in the courtroom windows begins to change.
May 28, 2024, 6:59 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The judge’s mood remains light. With the jury out of the room, the prosecution and defense argue about whether Joshua Steinglass can talk about Stormy Daniels’s state of mind.
Justice Merchan hears the lawyers out and sides with the defense, telling Steinglass that he’s gone as far as he needs to go in talking about Daniels being intimidated by Trump, and that no further argument to that effect need be made.
May 28, 2024, 7:00 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
I had thought the prosecution might raise the judge’s rulings related to the gag order that prevents Trump from verbally attacking witnesses like Daniels and Michael Cohen. In his ruling on that order, Merchan seemed to credit the idea that Trump’s lashing out at witnesses endangered them, and potentially prevented others from being willing to testify.
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May 28, 2024, 6:59 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
We are taking what the judge, smiling, promises the jurors is our last break of the day.
May 28, 2024, 6:54 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass continues the argument about witness intimidation, noting that Trump attacked Stormy Daniels on social media the same day she had an interview with the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Steinglass argues that the post contains a lie — in it, Trump said that he hadn’t seen or spoken to Daniels since meeting her on a golf course in 2006.
May 28, 2024, 6:55 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass says that the jury knows it to be a lie because Rhona Graff, Trump’s loyal assistant, testified that Daniels had met with Trump at Trump Tower. “Ask yourselves,” the prosecutor says, “Why did the defendant lie about this and why did he do it while the grand jury was considering charges in this case? People lie for a reason.”
May 28, 2024, 6:58 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass asks why, if Trump simply had a business relationship with Daniels, he attacked her in March 2023 when she made public that she had appeared before the grand jury.
May 28, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass again shares passages of one of Trump’s books, in which he wrote that he can’t stomach disloyalty. Steinglass argues that Trump disparages witnesses who speak out against him in order to discourage other witnesses from coming forward.
May 28, 2024, 6:57 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass reads a Truth Social post of Trump’s from August 2023, in which he wrote in all capital letters: “if you go after me, I”m coming after you.”
May 28, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass, describing how Michael Cohen discussed having pleaded guilty to federal crimes, hews very close to the trial transcript. When Steinglass's colleague Susan Hoffinger questioned Cohen about those pleas, she made sure to ask him if he had committed crimes at Trump’s behest. Cohen said that he had, and Steinglass just read significant portions of that testimony aloud, before pivoting to Trump’s tweets blasting Cohen shortly after he pleaded guilty.
May 28, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass argues that the tweets were meant to send a clear message to other potential witnesses. “Cooperate, and you will face the wrath of Donald Trump.”
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May 28, 2024, 6:41 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is reviewing evidence from the spring of 2018, when Michael Cohen was under investigation and beginning to question his loyalty to Trump. He argues that, whatever jurors think of Cohen, “he was the defendant’s fixer, and like all fixers, he knew where the bodies were buried.” Thus, he says, it was essential to keep Cohen happy.
May 28, 2024, 6:41 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The prosecutors have argued that a lawyer named Robert Costello was dispatched to attend to Cohen. Steinglass now begins to talk about Costello, who was the only substantive witness called by the defense, and chuckles as he does so: Costello’s appearance was a bit of a circus.
May 28, 2024, 6:36 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now in hour five of his closing argument, breaks included. This is awfully long and probably correlates to how much work Todd Blanche did to try to attack the case. But again, Steinglass is telling the prosecution’s story, which has a narrative undergirding it. Blanche’s didn’t; his version was, everyone was a liar but Trump.
May 28, 2024, 6:32 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Justice Merchan is smiling at a sidebar as the lawyers discuss the schedule for the remainder of the day. Joshua Steinglass just left the sidebar chuckling a bit and asked the jurors directly if they were good to go for a little bit longer. At least some must have signaled they were, because he is continuing. We don’t get any update on how much material he has left or how long it will take.
May 28, 2024, 6:33 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Seeing Merchan smiling was interesting just now. I’d expected that he would have a busy day dealing with objections from both sides. But other than delivering one serious scolding to a defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, for saying that jurors should not send Trump to prison, the judge has not had to say much.
May 28, 2024, 6:31 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass just spent a fair amount of time talking about the structure of the Trump Organization, which I think it’s fair to say led to a sort of dull stretch of argument. But he came out of it with a line he likely hopes jurors will remember: “In New York state, bottom line, you cannot lie in your business records.”
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May 28, 2024, 6:27 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now describing evidence from February 2018, and he is competing not only with the defense but with jurors' flagging attention spans as the clock moves toward 6:30. One juror just rubbed his eyes, another’s are heavily lidded. Four jurors in the back row are still paying close attention, but the signs of fatigue are definitely becoming more visible.
May 28, 2024, 6:27 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
“Can you slow down a little?” the court reporter asks Steinglass. He agrees to. “Thank you,” she says.
May 28, 2024, 6:25 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass points the jurors to testimony from Hope Hicks, in which Hicks said that Trump had expressed it “would have been bad” to have the Stormy Daniels story come out before the election. He argues that this comment shows that Trump was less focused on protecting his family and his wife than he was on winning the election.
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May 28, 2024, 6:16 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now focusing on the passages of Trump’s books which were read to the jury during the course of the trial. In the books, Trump described himself as a frugal micromanager who advised that one should always make sure to see and question invoices.
May 28, 2024, 6:16 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
In one excerpt, Trump said that while decorators are generally good people, you should still be very careful when checking invoices they submit. Steinglass adds his own gloss to this: “If Donald Trump is checking the invoices for his decorator, you can bet that he’s checking the invoices for Michael Cohen,” he says.
May 28, 2024, 6:18 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Some more quotes from Trump's books: “No detail is too small to consider” and, after talking about his preference for personally signing checks, “When you sign a check yourself, you’re seeing what’s really going on inside your business.”
May 28, 2024, 6:14 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is again attacking the defense for what he says was a “false narrative” about Trump ceasing to attend to his personal financial matters once he assumed the presidency. He notes that an assistant in the White House, Madeleine Westerhout, testified that Trump paid close attention to his personal expenses as president.
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May 28, 2024, 6:09 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
One thing I’m reminded of as Joshua Steinglass mocks Todd Blanche’s argument that Trump was so busy running the country that he couldn’t know what was happening with the checks is that Trump called me late on the night before he was formally nominated at the G.O.P. convention about a cease-and-desist letter he had sent Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote “The Art of the Deal.”
May 28, 2024, 6:08 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
One of the tricks in Joshua Steinglass’s arsenal is a sudden tone switch — sometimes, to get jurors’ attention, he suddenly moves toward colloquial language, sounding as if he’s had a beer at a bar.
He did that just now as he said that the defense was arguing that Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen were assuming authority over large amounts of Trump’s money. “That’s crazy,” Steinglass says. “Neither one had anywhere near that kind of authority.”
May 28, 2024, 6:04 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass appears to be seeking to punctuate his arguments with plenty of memorable lines and jokey asides. “The defendant didn’t actually pay a lawyer, he paid a p*rn star by funneling money through a lawyer” he says at one point.
May 28, 2024, 6:04 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Steinglass is conscious the jurors are starting to look fatigued. He makes a joke about not going through all the remaining documents and says it will be limited.
May 28, 2024, 6:00 p.m. ET
Jesse McKinley
What is the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, and how does it factor into the trial?
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Donald Trump’s Lewd Comments About Women
In a 2005 recording obtained by The Washington Post before the presidential election, Donald J. Trump talks about women in vulgar terms to Billy Bush, then the host of “Access Hollywood.”
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About a month before Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, a recording surfaced of him speaking in vulgar terms about women, causing a crisis within the Trump campaign and pandemonium across the Republican Party.
The so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, first obtained by The Washington Post, showed Mr. Trump bragging about grabbing women’s genitals, saying he could do so with abandon because “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”
Prosecutors have mentioned the tape at various stages of Mr. Trump’s criminal trial, including during closing arguments on Tuesday. They have argued that the release of the tape sent the campaign into damage-control mode to confront the intense fallout, becoming so desperate that Mr. Trump agreed to pay off Stormy Daniels, a p*rn star who was shopping a story of a 2006 sexual encounter with him.
Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, paid Ms. Daniels $130,000. The payment is at the heart of the 34 felony charges against Mr. Trump, who is accused of falsifying business records to cover it up.
On Tuesday, one of the prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, reminded jurors, through testimony from Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman Hope Hicks, that Mr. Trump recognized the potential damage of the tape.
Mr. Steinglass also showed jurors video clips of Mr. Trump himself acknowledging that the “Access Hollywood” tape and its aftermath could swing a very tight election. “If 5 percent of the people think it’s true, and maybe 10 percent,” Trump said in one clip, “we don’t win.”
On the tape, Mr. Trump recounted to the television personality Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” how he once pursued a married woman, expressing regret that they did not have sex. He bragged about what he considered his special status with women.
“You can do anything,” Mr. Trump said on the three-minute recording, which was captured on the set of “Days of Our Lives,” where Mr. Trump was making a cameo appearance.
The judge in Mr. Trump’s criminal trial, Juan M. Merchan, had ruled in March that prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office could question witnesses about the tape, but found that it would be prejudicial to play the actual video. He reaffirmed that ruling on April 15.
“You can bring out what was said in the tape,” Justice Merchan said, adding that he didn’t want jurors “to hear Mr. Trump’s voice and his gestures.”
In a victory for the defense, the judge also ruled that day that the prosecution could not introduce evidence about sexual assault allegations against Mr. Trump that arose after the tape became public, calling them “complete hearsay.”
However, Justice Merchan said that prosecutors could introduce emails that followed the tape’s disclosure, showing frantic efforts by Trump advisers to contain the fallout. The correspondence, he said, “bolsters the people’s claim that this was a crucial event.”
One of those emails, from Ms. Hicks to other campaign aides after the tape was released, included a transcript of Mr. Trump’s remarks, introducing those comments to jurors.
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May 28, 2024, 5:58 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass is now showing Trump’s filing with the federal government’s Office of Government Ethics in May 2018 that revealed Trump had made a payment to Michael Cohen. The filing came a few days after Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s lawyers, said on Fox News that Trump had reimbursed Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment.
May 28, 2024, 5:58 p.m. ET
Michael Gold
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche earlier cited this same filing as evidence that Trump had no intent to defraud.
May 28, 2024, 5:56 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Joshua Steinglass notes that Trump himself has, several times in several places, “admitted” that the payments to Cohen were reimbursem*nts, not payments for legal services. This would not be a devastating argument if the defense had proposed an alternative theory of the case. But given that the defense has argued the $420,000 sent to Cohen was in fact a payment for legal services, these admissions from Trump himself are not good for the former president and his legal team.
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May 28, 2024, 5:12 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Who is Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor delivering the closing statement?
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Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor who is delivering the hourslong closing argument in the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, is an assistant district attorney who has served in the role in Manhattan since 1998.
He is part of an accomplished team compiled by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, that includes former white-collar criminal defense lawyers and veteran prosecutors who have extensive experience going up against Mr. Trump.
In 2022, Mr. Steinglass helped lead the team that secured a conviction against the Trump Organization for conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. He also delivered the closing statement in that trial.
Mr. Steinglass has more commonly focused on trying significant violent crimes, including a brawl on the Upper East Side that led to the conviction of two Proud Boy extremists in 2019.
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