After 22 witnesses, including a porn actor, tabloid publisher and White House insiders, testimony is over at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York. Prosecutors called 20 witnesses. The defence called just two. Trump decided not to testify on his own behalf.
The trial now shifts to closing arguments, scheduled for Tuesday.
After that, it will be up to 12 jurors to decide whether prosecutors have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified his company’s business records as part of a broader effort to keep stories about marital infidelity from becoming public during his 2016 presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrongdoing.
A conviction could come down to how the jurors interpret the testimony and which witnesses they find credible. The jury must be unanimous. The records involved include 11 checks sent to Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as well as invoices and company ledger entries related to those payments.
Here’s a look at key trial witnesses and what they had to say:
STORMY DANIELS
As Trump sat feet away, the porn actor, writer and director, gave a detailed and at times graphic account of a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in Nevada in 2006. After they met at a celebrity golf tournament, she said, Trump invited her to dinner but then engaged her in conversation in his hotel room and startled her by stripping to his underwear while she was in the bathroom.
“I felt the room spin in slow motion. I felt the blood basically leave my hands and my feet,” Daniels testified. “I just thought, Oh, my God, what did I misread to get here?’ Because the intention was pretty clear, somebody stripped down in their underwear and posing on the bed, like waiting for you.”
Daniels said Trump did not physically threaten her, but “my own insecurities in that moment kept me from saying no”. Daniels said she kept in touch with Trump for about a year in hopes of appearing on his TV show “The Apprentice”, but it never happened.
Daniels spoke about accepting USD 15,000 for a magazine interview in 2011. The story was not printed at the time but ended up on a gossip website without her consent. Her lawyer, in consultation with Cohen, complained and had the story taken down.
In 2016, Daniels authorised her manager to shop her story again but found little interest until the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording of Trump boasting about grabbing women’s genitals without their permission. Daniels told the jury she accepted USD 130,000 from Cohen in the final weeks of the election in exchange for a legal agreement to keep the claim to herself. Trump’s lawyers grilled Daniels about her motivation, eliciting testimony that she hates the former Republican president.
DAVID PECKER
A longtime Trump friend, Pecker was the publisher of the National Enquirer and chief executive of its parent company, American Media Inc, during the 2016 presidential campaign. Pecker told the jury he agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s campaign, looking out for damaging stories so they could be suppressed. He said he agreed to the role — and to a plan to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents — at an August 2015 meeting with Trump and Cohen.
“If there were any rumours in the marketplace about Mr Trump or his family or any negative stories that were coming out or anything that I heard overall,” Pecker said, “I would call Michael Cohen directly.”
KEITH DAVIDSON
A lawyer known for representing people trying to sell celebrity sex tapes or other embarrassing information, Davidson negotiated the hush money deals for McDougal and Daniels. He gave jurors an inside look at the negotiations and helped corroborate Pecker’s testimony. At first, Davidson said, the National Enquirer was not interested in acquiring McDougal’s story, saying she “lacked documentary evidence”.
But the tabloid eventually bought it at Pecker’s behest. Davidson said he understood it would never be published because of “an unspoken understanding that there was an affiliation” between Pecker and Trump and that the National Enquirer would not run the story “because it would hurt Donald Trump”.
MICHAEL COHEN
Cohen, a flawed but vital prosecution witness, testified about working with the National Enquirer to suppress negative stories about Trump. Cohen insisted he was working at Trump’s direction when the lawyer helped orchestrate the payments to McDougal and Daniels. Cohen testified that he kept the detail-oriented Trump updated on the payoffs. Regarding the decision to pay Daniels, Cohen said Trump felt it was best to buy her silence. “He stated to me that he had spoken to some friends, some individuals, very smart people, and that it’s $130,000. You’re like a billionaire. Just pay it. There is no reason to keep this thing out there. So do it,” Cohen said. “And he expressed to me: Just do it. Go meet up with Allen Weisselberg and figure this whole thing out,” Cohen said, referring to the Trump Organisation’s chief financial officer at the time.
Testifying over the course of four days, Cohen told the jury he sought Trump’s approval for the Daniels payment because “everything required Mr Trump’s sign-off. On top of that, I wanted the money back”. When it briefly looked like the deal with Daniels might fall apart, Cohen said Trump got “really angry with me,” saying, “I thought you took care of this?”
HOPE HICKS
Trump’s former campaign and White House communications director, Hicks testified about the frenetic days after the “Access Hollywood” leak as she and Trump’s political advisers tried to contain the fallout. Hicks said she was “very concerned” about the impact of the tape and she subsequently asked Cohen to chase down a rumour about another potentially damaging recording, which turned out not to exist. Hicks said after The Wall Street Journal published its article detailing McDougal’s hush money deal, Trump was concerned about how his wife, Melania, would take it.
ROBERT COSTELLO
Trump’s lawyers called Costello, an attorney and ex-federal prosecutor, as their primary witness in a terse defense case aimed at undermining Cohen’s credibility.
After the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018, Costello offered to become his lawyer. He told the jury that during their first meeting, Cohen paced anxiously, saying his life, and his family’s life, had been “shattered”. “He said: I really want you to explain to me what my options are. What’s my escape route?’” Costello said. Costello said Cohen also insisted that he had made the Daniels deal on his own, that Trump “knew nothing” about it, and that Cohen had no incriminating information about Trump he could offer to federal prosecutors.
