Explainer | Donald Trump’s hush money case has gone to the jury. What happens now?
- These seven men and five women are tasked with deciding if the ex-US president is guilty of any of 34 felony counts of falsifying his company’s records
- As they deliberate, Trump doesn’t have to be in the courtroom but has to remain in the building to await the verdict
After nearly two dozen witnesses, 16 days of testimony and hours of lawyers’ closing arguments, it’s time for the jurors to have their say in Donald Trump’s hush money trial.
The first day of jury deliberations concluded on Wednesday in the first criminal trial of a former US president, after the panel sent their first two notes to the judge. The seven-man, five-woman panel is tasked with deciding whether Trump is guilty of any of 34 felony counts of falsifying his company’s records.
Prosecutors say Trump falsified the records to veil reimbursements to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen, who had paid porn actress Stormy Daniels US$130,000 in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign not to air her claim that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier.
The former president and presumptive Republican nominee has pleaded not guilty, denies any sexual interaction with Daniels and argues that the payments to Cohen were correctly designated as legal expenses in company records.
Now that the case has gone to the jury, here’s a look at how deliberations will work.
What is the jury deciding?
If the jury convicts Trump, it must unanimously find he created a false entry in his company’s records, or caused someone else to do so, and that he did so with the intent of violating or concealing a violation of a state law making it illegal for conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means”.