Posted on 05/30/2024 6:51:54 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator
Edited on 05/30/2024 6:53:08 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Deliberations resume this morning, after Merchan rereads instructions back to the jurors. Thoughts?
Pecker said that he called Cohen about the Daniels story because he expected Cohen was “go ballistic” if he heard about such a story. He said he promised to be “the eyes and ears” on such matters
They are now up to request number four and Cohen’s testimony on the Trump Tower meeting
Sounds like the jurors are re-reading the whole case, give it another week, they don’t appear even close to a verdict
In the direct examination of Cohen, he said that the meeting in Trump Tower was a discussion of how they could “place positive stories about Mr. Trump” as well as “negative stories” on opponents. He confirmed that Pecker would let them know about negative stories that might be coming out...
My feeling is that this is all an effort by the lawyers on the jury to make it look like they crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is. They are building the guilty verdict to make it as solid as possible. Who ever heard of lawyers on a jury? And this one has two of them.
Notably, the meeting sounds like a general effort to enlist the support of the newspaper, something that is common. Various media outlets were well known to run interference for the campaign. The portion from Cohen was pretty short in comparison to that of Pecker...
The jury is now going back to deliberations
Over 1.5 hours of re-reading
. Who ever heard of lawyers on a jury? And this one has two of them.
—
And one is the foreman
>> Sounds like the jurors are re-reading the whole case, give it another week, they don’t appear even close to a verdict
It’s good news to me that they appear to be actually deliberating, not seeking to justify a decision they held when they entered the room.
P.S. Thank you janetjanet998 for your diligence in reporting!
All good points. I think I can agree with them all. I’m not sure about whether it would be the same judge. I saw one of those “Innocent or Guilty” shows recently where a kid got a mistrial and was then retried by the exact same judge.
But the amount of pressure brought to bear on a defendant, and in this case the American people and the precedent it sets can be such a destructive force in and of itself.
There may be quite a lot of positive points to be made leading into a subsequent trial. But man, it’s gotta be tough to be the person who has it continuing to hang over their head. I’d imagine you’d get a day or two of feeling relieved, and then back to the lawyer’s office to prepare for trial.
“They are now up to request number four and Cohen’s testimony on the Trump Tower meeting”
This many requests from the jury as to testimony, evidence, and instructions seems to be a good sign for the defense. At least one juror, and maybe more, is not totally buying the prosecution’s narrative. It’s a sign that not all are on board with “Trump’s guilty of something so let’s get this over with and go home”.
Or, it could be a sign that they have agreed to stretch it out a bit so the book deals and CNN/MSNBC appearances will be worth a little more $$$.
Turley
Overall, I thought that the testimony helped both sides. The Trump Tower meeting did not deal with Stormy Daniels and was only around 20-25 minutes in enlisting the help of the publication. It was a general discussion in seeking the support of Pecker who said that it was in the interests of the magazine to continue to run positive stories while also avoiding negative stories.
Note there was no false record created. The Trump Organization (TO) recorded the payments to Cohen as legal expenses. But the TO could have listed them as “payments for legal settlement” and that would have been 100 percent accurate, and no one could have deduced the payments were going to Clifford from that 100 percent accurate description. Why didn’t the TO do this? Obviously because they didn’t care how the expenses were listed, they are just accountants. There is no financial significance to how the payments were described. They just recorded the expenses in the easiest way possible. They could have described them more accurately and there would no difference at all in the ability of anyone to determine that some of the money went to Clifford. Also, they DID NOT KNOW HOW MUCH WENT TO CLIFFORD so they couldn’t accurately state the amount retained by Cohen and the amount paid to Clifford. This logic destroys the notion that anyone intended to conceal the payments by labeling them as legal expenses, they could have concealed the payments in numerous other ways and the statements would have been bulletproof accurate.
>> it’s gotta be tough to be the person who has it continuing to hang over their head
Who but Donald Trump, with his lion’s heart AND the financial resources to stay in the fight, could withstand all the violent hateful crap they have thrown at him AND STILL HOLD CAMPAIGN RALLIES IN THE NEXT BOROUGH OVER. ??
It is my solid belief that GOD raised up President Donald J. Trump for a time such as this. And if GOD be for him, who can prevail against him? (I think that’s in the Book somewhere. :-) )
BTTT!
Amen!! 👆🏻
Turley’s all over the damn map. I argued fiercely with someone the other day who said Turley is feckless. But now I’m beginning to believe it myself. He’s playing both sides for clicks and eyeballs, nothing more.
There has been a lot of ink spilled talking about the vague “second crime” Trump was planning to commit... however, if the jury finds as a matter of fact that recording the expenses as “legal fees” was not a misdemeanor crime in the first place, every count of the indictment crumbles.
From raw story:
Judge Juan Merchan’s attempt to clarify jury instructions is creating new worries for Donald Trump’s defense team, a former Manhattan prosecutor told a CNN panel on Thursday morning
What can we logically infer? That it was raining outside,” he elaborated. “So did you see it, John? Did you see it Kate? Did you see it, Jeremy [Saland]? None of us saw it but we could reasonably infer based upon the surrounding circumstances that it happened. That’s the prosecution’s main argument here.”
“If the jury buys the circumstantial rain metaphor, it spells trouble for the defense,” he added.
He could try. But, keep in mind, this is lawfare. Politics and optics, not the application of law or the pursuit of impartial justice. A hung jury? AN EPIC DEFEAT for the witch hunters and a HUMONGOUS VINDICATION OF TRUMP.
“every count of the indictment crumbles.”
Exactly. Why would anyone make an arguably or potentially false entry to conceal a supposed crime when they could just as well make an accurate entry which would equally well conceal the supposed crime? Bragg is asking us to believe that the accountants at the Trump Organization wanted to commit legal suicide for nothing.
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