Thread by @stewartbishop

Back again at the criminal trial of Donald Trump, and/or Manhattan’s hottest club, for closing arguments at last.

I don’t see any pro-Trump protestors outside the courthouse today, though if past is any guide, I’d bet there’s going to be a who’s who of GOP politicians packing the gallery in support of Trump today.

The official @law360 "Icebox" Thermometer ™️is currently reading the courtroom temperature at 74.8 degrees F & 59% humidity.

Word jockeys @frankrunyeon and @rscharf_ are here with me to cover the hell out of this thing for @law360, along with approximately 12,000 other reporters from every news outlet on earth.

As @frankrunyeon mentioned earlier, Team Trump is going to make their summations first today, followed by prosecutors. That's unlike federal court, where prosecutors go first, followed by the defense, and then the government gets the last word with a rebuttal.

@frankrunyeon Trump has arrived and is seated at the defense table. Behind him in the gallery are Don Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Tiffany Trump(!!!) and son-in-law Michael Boulos. Absent are Melania, Ivanka, Jared and Barron.

@frankrunyeon Oh my. Trump counsel Todd Blanche says he expects his closings to last 2 1/2 hours. Prosecutors say theirs is likely to come in at 4 1/2. Reporters groan.

“President Trump is innocent,” Blanche tells the jury as he begins his closings. “He did not commit any crimes and the district attorney has not met [his] burden of proof, period.”

Blanche says prosecutors have to show more than the testimony of Michael Cohen to make their case, and something beyond the testimony Stormy, "who claims something happened in 2006.”

“This case is about the documents, it’s a paper case, it’s not about an...encounter with Stormy Daniels years ago,” Blanche tells the jury.

Blanche scoffs at the notion that the payments from Trump to Michael Cohen in 2017 were anything other that attorneys' fees as opposed to hush money repayments.

“There’s a reason why, in life, usually the simplest answer is the right one, and that’s the case here,” Blanche says. “The story that Mr. Cohen told you on the witness stand is not true.”

“Case turns on Cohen” the title of a document reads, which is shown to the jury.

Blanche scoffs at Cohen’s claims that he wasn't actually paid for his work as Trump’s personal lawyer and instead only made $ at the time from his work as a consultant for companies looking to get close to Trump.

“On direct [Cohen] says one thing, on cross he tells you another,” Blanche says. “He’s not telling the truth, he’s lying.

The official @law360 "Icebox" Thermometer ™️ now reads the courtroom temperature at 75.4 F and 50% humidity.

@Law360 As for David Pecker, Blanche brings up the 2015 Trump Tower meeting the National Enquirer publisher attended with Trump and Cohen. Pecker says it was there he agreed to use his media empire to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents.

@Law360 Blanche says that there’s nothing wrong with politicians entering into such deals with media outlets.

“It’s not uncommon for campaigns to work with the media to promote campaign themes,” Blanche tells jurors. “This is the campaign, this is the election, this is not a crime.”

@Law360 Shorter version of 90% of this closing: “Michael Cohen is a liar, Michael Cohen is a liar, Michael Cohen is a liar, Michael Cohen is a liar, Michael Cohen is a liar, Michael Cohen is a liar.”

@Law360 "He's literally like the MVP of liars," Blanche says of Cohen. "He lies constantly."

@Law360 “Michael Cohen, he is the human embodiment of reasonable doubt,” Blanche says.

Back from the break and ADA Josh Steinglass is about to begin his 4 1/2 hour closings for the government.

Steinglass rips the defense narrative that Stormy was part of a plot to extort Trump. Even if it was true, he says it doesn't matter.

“You don’t get to commit election fraud or falsify business records because you think you’ve been victimized,” Steinglass says. “Extortion is not a defense to falsifying business records.”

Of course, Steinglass has to defend Michael Cohen here. He acknowledges that Cohen is far from perfect, but says corroborating evidence supports his version of events.

“We didn’t choose Michael Cohen, we didn’t pick him up at the witness store,” Steinglass says. “The defendant chose Michael Cohen.”

Steinglass tells jurors that it’s not about whether or they like Cohen or would want to do business with him, it’s about whether he has truthful information about what went down.

“He was in the best position to know, he was the defendant's right hand,” Steinglass says.

Steinglass brings up the 2015 Trump Tower meeting between Trump, Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.

Prosecutors this is when the three men formed a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election by keeping damaging information about Trump out of the public eye.

Steinglass brings up Blanche’s argument that there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election, that it’s just democracy.

“In reality this meeting at Trump Tower was the opposite. It was to subvert democracy,” Steinglass says.

Steinglass says when AMI purchased stories on Trump’s behalf and in coordination with his campaign, those purchases became illegal campaign contributions.

The court takes a break. Justice Juan Merchan asks Steinglass how much time he's got left in his closing. He says he's about a third of the way through. He's been going for an hour and 45 minutes.

True story, I once saw the Manhattan DA's office take three days for their closings.

Steinglass gets to the Access Hollywood tape. It’s a key thing to the DA’s case. Prosecutors say the whole reason that Trump paid Stormy was that he didn’t want another scandal like that to be made public a month before the election.

“Hope Hicks told you the [Access Hollywood] news was so explosive that it eclipsed the news of a category four hurricane,” Steinglass says. “So I guess it was a category five hurricane.”

Back from a break, and Steinglass is on to the reimbursement of Cohen for paying Stormy $130k out of his own pocket. As we've heard before, Cohen, Trump and Allen Weisselberg worked out a deal to pay Cohen back.

The jury is shown two documents with Weisselberg’s handwritten notes that break down $420,000 to be paid to Cohen over the course of 2017, a figure that covers the hush money, taxes and other payments.

“They are the smoking guns, they completely blow out of the water the defendant’s claims that the money paid to Cohen...was for legal services rendered,” Steinglass tells the jury.

“These documents are so damning that you almost have to laugh” at the way that Trump counsel Todd Blanche tried to explain that there was no fraud, Steinglass says.

About the taxes. Cohen was getting this money repaid, but he was treating it as income, so in order to be made whole, Weissleberg “grossed up” the number to cover taxes Cohen would have to pay.

Steinglass notes that even if Cohen ended up paying more taxes than he otherwise would have, it’s still illegal to file false tax documents.

This is still going on. I think we passed the four-hour point.

“New York is the business capital of the world, whether your are private enterprise or public enterprise, you have an obligation to keep [accurate] books,” Steinglass says, giving me false hope that he was wrapping up.

“The false business records benefited one person and one person only and that was the defendant,” Steinglass says, boldly plowing into his fifth hour.

At long last, Steinglass finishes his closings. We’ll begin tomorrow with jury instructions with deliberations to follow.