As Donald Trump trial nears end, prosecutor focuses on ‘cover-up’, while defence attacks witness
- Closing arguments offered both sides a final chance to score points with the jury before it starts deliberating the first felony case against an ex-US president
- Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, staged an event outside the courthouse with actor Robert De Niro
Donald Trump engaged in “a conspiracy and a cover-up”. a prosecutor told jurors during closing arguments on Tuesday in the former US president’s hush money trial, while a defence lawyer branded the star witness as the “greatest liar of all time” and pressed the panel for an across-the-board acquittal.
The lawyers’ duelling accounts, wildly divergent in their assessments of witness credibility and the strength of evidence, offered both sides one final chance to score points with the jury before it starts deliberating the first felony case against a former American president.
“This case, at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors.
The trial featured allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to stifle potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign through hush money payments, including to a porn actress who alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier. Trump has denied having sex with both women.
His lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that neither the actor, Stormy Daniels, nor the Trump lawyer who paid her can be trusted in their testimony.