Jurors began deliberations on Wednesday in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, kicking off a crucial and delicate phase in the case that will see 12 ordinary citizens decide whether a former and potentially future president becomes the first to be convicted.
Twenty-two witnesses took the stand over six weeks, as the seven men and five women who make up the jury sat for more than 80 hours of testimony. Then, after nearly eight hours of closing arguments, the judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, began on Wednesday instructing the panel of 12 New Yorkers on how to weigh whether the district attorney’s office had left any room for doubt in what prosecutors deemed a “mountain” of evidence.
“The defendant is not required to prove that he is not guilty,” Merchan said. “The defendant is not required to prove or disprove anything.”
As Merchan reviewed the burden proof, Trump kept silent, his eyes closed and head tilted softly back. He broke this up with short bursts of activity.
Later, Trump slammed the case as a politicized trial orchestrated by his political enemies. “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges,” Trump said. “These charges are rigged.”
He raised a fist as he reentered court late in the day.
Here’s what you missed on Day 22 of Trump’s hush money trial:
Jurors seek more info
A jury bell rang out shortly after 3 p.m., setting off a flurry of activity as jurors filed their first of two notes with the court on Thursday. Prosecutors from the district attorney’s office filed in the courtroom, and Trump entered with his team. Seated behind Trump was his son, Donald Trump Jr., along with aides Boris Epshteyn, Natalie Harp, Karoline Leavitt, Alina Habba, and Steve Witkoff, a longtime friend. Trump advisers Jason Miller and Steven Cheung sat in the back of the courtroom.
The jurors had sent a note to the court at 2:56 pm requesting testimony from David Pecker about a phone conversation with Trump that he took during an investor meeting and purchasing the rights to the life story of former Playboy model Karen McDougal. They asked for Pecker’s testimony regarding a Trump Tower meeting and Michael Cohen’s. The account is central to the scheme to defraud voters that prosecutors say Trump committed.
Trump, whose eyes had been shut moments earlier, began reading the document. His attorneys sat huddled over a laptop, and attorneys for both sides seemingly began searching for the passages in question. A second note from the jurors, at 3:51 pm, asked to rehear the judge’s instructions. As Merchan read back the note, prosecutors for the district attorney’s team appeared to grow tense. Susan Hoffinger knit her brow into a furrow.
Blanche, on Trump’s defense team, cracked a tight smile at first but soon seemed to ease into what he was hearing. He began whispering to Trump and defense attorney Emil Bove as Merchan instructed the court, growing more animated. Behind him, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., rested his arm over the head of a bench.
After deliberating for four and a half hours, the jury was dismissed for the day. But it was not over for the principal attorneys, with Steinglass and Hoffinger for the prosecution and Blanche and Bove for the defense poring over notes and transcripts at the defense table.
Weighing the evidence
As Merchan instructed the jury of a dozen New Yorkers on the burden to prove Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant leaned into his seat, his eyes closed, and head tilted softly back. Occasionally, Trump took quick, furtive glances around the room, eyeing a prosecutor for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, Joshua Steinglass, as he spoke.
Merchan read the charges and what must be proven to show how Trump allegedly falsified each business record and its corresponding count. The judge explained how the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree must include the intent to commit another crime to aid or conceal the commission of another crime. But prosecutors do not need to prove the other crime was actually committed.
Several jurors began taking notes as the judge told them that a “general intent to defraud suffices.”
Trump’s attorneys did not look comforted. Todd Blanche rested his elbows on the table before him, and sometimes held his chin in his hands. He rubbed his eyes. Three seats over, another attorney, Susan Necheles, slumped in her seat.
In a Truth Social post, Trump railed against Merchan’s instructions, which he called the most “biased and unfair in Judicial History.”
“I could be in jail tomorrow,” Trump thundered in a fundraising email.
Jurors don’t have to agree
While all jurors must be unanimous that Trump falsified business records with the intent to defraud and conceal the conspiracy to promote his election through unlawful means, including whether those means amount to federal election campaign act violations, falsification of other business records, or a tax law violation. But jurors are not required to agree unanimously on what those unlawful means are.
Some of Trump’s allies mischaracterized the instructions, with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., saying that jurors “don’t have to unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one.” Jurors don’t have to agree on the crime Trump was allegedly seeking to cover up, but they must still agree that he sought to cover up a crime.
As the judge explained in painstaking detail how jurors should weigh each of the 34 charges against him, Trump held a bottle to his lips and took a long sip.
Elsewhere in the courthouse, Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer whose landmark 2020 rape conviction was overturned last month, was due to appear before a judge.
Rules
Jurors were required to surrender their phones as deliberations are ongoing. But before they could begin, two volunteers from the panel needed to learn how to operate a laptop for the jury’s use with all of the admitted evidence. The jurors, a panel that includes two attorneys, a teacher, a software engineer and a speech therapist, are not to deliberate without their full panel present, and cannot tell Merchan their vote.
The alternate jurors do not sit in on deliberations but still surrender their phones. Like the impaneled jury, they must not research, read, or learn about the case outside of court.
Later, Merchan asked prosecutors whether they could disable the internet on the laptop jurors use to view evidence in the trial before the panel returns Thursday.
