Donald Trump said nothing in the courtroom as his lead defense attorney made his closing argument that the former president should be found not guilty of falsifying business records.
It was not necessary.
Todd Blanche’s two-and-a-half-hour deposition was littered with the defendant’s own words and fingerprints, making it part legal argument and part campaign speech.
There was a derogatory nickname for a key witness: “Michael Cohen is the GLOAT.” “The Biggest Liar of All Time”: frequent references to prosecutors as the “government” (when in New York state court it is “the people” who initiate proceedings) and a final incendiary reference to his client who faces to prison.
“You can’t send someone to prison…you can’t convict someone based on Michael Cohen’s words,” Blanche said, prompting an immediate objection from the prosecutor’s office.
Donald Trump’s words resonated in the courtroom on Tuesday. Not from his own mouth, but from his attorney Todd Blanche (left) as he delivered his closing argument.
The sentence is the domain of the judge. And no one really believes Trump faces prison time, other than the Trump campaign’s press release writers.
It meant that on Tuesday morning there was something like the rhetoric of a Trump rally, much to the fury of Judge Juan Merchán. He turned to Blanche and pointed out that, as a former prosecutor, he should know better than to use that language.
‘You know making a comment like that is very inappropriate. It’s simply not allowed. Period,” she said.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that was accidental in any way.”
After lunch, the judge ordered the jury to put all thoughts of prison and sentencing out of their minds when they began their deliberations on Wednesday.
Trump denies 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The trial is in its final stages and on Tuesday both the defense and prosecution had the opportunity to tie together the strands of evidence from 22 witnesses in their closing statements.
The court has heard from witnesses and from words on his own books that Trump has a tendency to micromanage, keeping a close eye on bills, balance sheets and checks.
Likewise, those who know him well say it is unthinkable that he had no say in the way the closing argument was written.
Blanche delivered her closing arguments for about two and a half hours Tuesday.
Much of the defense’s closing argument was aimed at discrediting Michael Cohen’s testimony.
Some aspects were very Trumpy. Others were more subtle.
Nowhere was this more evident than when Blanche repeated over and over that Cohen, a disbarred lawyer with a conviction for lying and who is the prosecution’s star witness, was completely unreliable.
He was the MVP of liars, he said, before resorting to the most Trumpian rhetorical device: the nickname.
“Michael Cohen is the GLOAT: the biggest liar of all time,” he said, pausing for effect.
The structure of his argument was also similar to his client’s “deny everything” approach: Trump did not sleep with Stormy Daniels; there was no catch-and-kill agreement for harmful stories; Trump had nothing to do with the documents in question, which were invoices written by Cohen, vouchers prepared by accounting staff or automatically generated checks; and don’t believe anything Cohen said.
Cohen, after all, was the only witness who directly linked Trump to the plan to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 he gave Daniels to maintain his silence.
Much of the prosecution’s case, Blanche argued, was the normal work of a candidate running for office.
Tiffany Trump took her seat in Courtroom 1530 for the first time on Tuesday, joining other members of her family and friends of Trump as the trial comes to a close.
From left to right: Donald Trump Jr., Tiffany Trump, Eric Trump, Lara Trump arriving at court
Trump returned to court Tuesday after the long holiday weekend
“Any campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people working together to help someone win,” he said.
Likewise, there is nothing illegal about confidentiality agreements, he added, using Trump’s line that anything written by lawyers is legal by definition.
Throughout the proceedings, the jury listened attentively. Their deliberations will likely begin on Wednesday, tasked with deciding for the first time in history whether a former president is guilty of criminal charges.
They seemed to know their responsibilities. They followed Blanche’s arguments and her PowerPoint sliders, looking closely at her monitors.
It was friends and family day for the accused. Daughter Tiffany appeared in court for the first time and took a seat in the front row, alongside her sister-in-law Lara and brothers Eric and Don Jr.
For his part, Trump focused on the arguments more closely than in previous days. He turned to his right to better see Blanche throw what she hopes are knockout lines.
Blanche, more than anyone, knows that her job has been to balance the audience of 12 people who will decide her client’s guilt or innocence, and the audience of one sitting next to her.
It was family and friends day for Trump with (from left) Don Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump and Tiffany Trump sitting behind him in the courtroom.
Trump’s lawyers’ language has mimicked Trump’s, referring to prosecutors as “the government” rather than “the people,” for example.
And the lead client would have heard his lawyer repeatedly refer to the prosecution as “the government.” In fact, forty times.
“So now I’m going to talk a little bit about what I hope the government talks about, which is a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election,” he said at one point.
Blanche is a former federal prosecutor. In that position, he effectively represented the government.
But in the New York Supreme Court, prosecutors represent “the people of the state of New York.”
Some observers suggested the slip was a hangover from Blanche’s past on a different kind of cut. But it also fits better with Trump’s rhetoric about witch hunts and persecution.
‘Why is the corrupt government allowed to present the final argument in the case against me? he asked on Truth Social a day earlier, apparently unaware that the prosecution always comes last.
‘Why can’t defense be last? Big advantage, very unfair. Witch hunt!’
It’s all a reminder of how the defense began and how Blanche established a linguistic benchmark in her opening statement.
“We will call him ‘President Trump’ out of respect for the office he held from 2017 to 2021,” he told the jury. And as everyone knows, it is the position for which he is running right now. He is the Republican candidate.
Throughout, Trump scowled and scowled from his seat at the defense table. And his words have echoed in the courtroom through audio recordings, readings from his books or even pastiche-filled messages sent by others.
In a text message shown to the jury, the Australian-born editor of the National Enquirer jokes about plans to “Make Australia Great Again.”
“Trump is behind everything they’re doing,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said dryly.