United States: Donald Trump’s first criminal trial has moved into its last phase, with attorneys on both sides ready on Tuesday to finalize their presentations before a jury decides the verdict that might written in the pages of history books.
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The summations signify the end of a trial that began over one month back. These are expected to continue throughout the day on Tuesday and also the subsequent day.
The jury will then follow the instruction from Judge Juan Merchan on the law, and Trump and the rest of the country will have to wait to see whether Trump will become the first-ever ex-president, who is also the presumptive GOP nominee to be convicted with a crime after reportedly submitting a false financial statement to conceal a payment to an adult film actress for hush money in 2016, as CNN reported.
Implications of the Judgment
The verdict will have implications extending far beyond the personal sphere and the courtroom, as the case is linked to Trump’s campaign for the presidency of the United States.
The stakes are high as this is likely to be the only of four criminal trials to proceed to a jury before the November elections. The former president looked rather unfriendly on the eve of the day that he regained his chair in the courtroom, insulting the people he referred to as ‘Human Scum’ in his Memorial Day post.
The ex-presiudent’s defense counsel is defending their client against the accusations in a bid to avoid a conviction, which would historically be regarded as shameful for Trump.
The lead attorney for the ex-president, Todd Blanche, is expected to question the reliability of Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who had to go through aggressive confrontation by the defense, and yet, as Scannell, CNN’s report, the defense said, why not other individuals linked closely to the ex-president was not presented by the prosecution.
Joshua Steinglass is conducting the closing arguments for the prosecution, and after Blanche, he will have to spend about 3 to 4 hours explaining to the jury what they have seen through the copies of the text messages, phone calls, the testimonies of other witnesses, and the 34 documents that were shaped by Cohen.
In the end, the team working under the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is a Democrat, will attempt to convince the seven men and five women jurors that Trump choreographed an early attempt at poll manipulation to prohibit the voters from getting undesirable information about himself.