NEW YORK:Defence lawyers in Donald Trump's hush money trial made their final pitch to the jury on Tuesday (May 28), highlighting what they insisted was scanty evidence provided by prosecutors seeking the first ever criminal conviction of a former US president.
Less than six months before American voters choose whether to return Trump to the White House, the stakes riding on the verdict are hard to overstate - for the 77-year-old personally, but also for the country.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a US$130,000 payment to p*rn star Stormy Daniels, when her account of a 2006 sexual encounter with the then-Republican nominee could have doomed his 2016 campaign.
"This is a very dangerous day for America," Trump told reporters before entering the Manhattan courtroom as three of his five children - Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany - stood behind him. "We have a rigged court case that should have never been brought."
"President Trump is innocent," his defence attorney Todd Blanche told the jury at the start of what he said would be about two-and-a-half hours of closing arguments.
"The consequences of the lack of proof you have heard over the last five weeks is simple - it's a not guilty verdict," Blanche said.
He attacked Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, painting him as a liar.
"He told you a number of things on that witness stand that were lies, pure and simple," Blanche said.
Trump was "busy running the country" when the reimbursem*nts were made to Cohen," he said, and sometimes he "would look at the checks and the invoices and sometimes he wouldn't."
"There was no intent to defraud and beyond that there was no conspiracy to influence the 2016 election by president Trump," Blanche said. "He did not commit any crimes."
GRAPHIC TESTIMONY
Prosecutors will get the last word. They will lay out the case that Trump falsified the records to keep the hush money payment secret amid fear that the episode could sink his already rocky outsider's bid to defeat Hillary Clinton.
The 12 jurors - whose identities have been kept secret for their protection - will then start deliberations as early as Wednesday.
Polls show Trump neck and neck against President Joe Biden in the White House race and the verdict will mark a new moment of extreme tension in an already bitter contest.
Speaking on behalf of the Biden campaign outside the courtroom, actor Robert De Niro berated Trump as a "clown" and "grubby real estate developer" intent on destroying the country.
Trump is the first former or sitting president under criminal indictment, with charges ranging from the relatively minor hush money case to accusations that he took top secret documents and tried to overthrow the 2020 election.
The New York case, which featured more than 20 witnesses over five weeks, is the only one likely to have come to trial by election day on Nov 5.
If convicted, Trump faces up to four years in prison on each of 34 counts, but legal experts say that as a first-time offender he is unlikely to get jail time.
Trump would almost certainly appeal and a conviction would not in any case bar him from appearing on the ballot in November.
As expected, Trump chose not to testify in his defence - a move that would have exposed him to damaging cross-examination.
Instead, he was forced to sit and listen while Daniels recounted their alleged encounter in sometimes graphic detail and his once close personal attorney and fixer Cohen took the stand.
UNANIMITY REQUIRED
Trump has used his daily trips to court to stage televised tirades against "corrupt" Judge Juan Merchan, and to claim that the trial is a Democratic ploy to keep him off the campaign trail.
Republican Trump loyalists, including several vying to be picked as his vice president, have become outspoken critics of the trial and in some cases have made the trek to the courtroom to sit behind him.
The judge has said he expects closing arguments to take up all of Tuesday. He will then give final instructions to the jury on how to interpret the law.
To return a guilty or not guilty verdict requires unanimity. Just one holdout means a hung jury and a mistrial, although prosecutors could then seek a new trial.
In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
He also faces charges in Florida of storing huge quantities of classified national security documents after leaving the White House.
