Trump defence rests its case in hush money trial after calling only two witnesses to stand

Trump’s absence from the witness box was hardly surprising for other reasons, too. While the feisty 77-year-old had initially signalled he would be willing to give evidence in his own defence, he was noticeably less enthusiastic after Judge Juan Merchan last month ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to question him about two of his other recent legal woes.

The first was the civil fraud case in which Trump was recently ordered to pay $US350 million ($535 million) and barred from running a business in New York for three years, for unlawfully inflating the value of his assets while building the real estate empire that helped catapult him into the White House.

The second was the defamation case against writer E. Jean Carroll, who Trump was also found liable of sexually assaulting in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.

But even without his testimony, this was nothing short of a legal blockbuster - so much so, that people would often stand in line hours before the court opened hoping to get one of the limited seats on the 15th floor.

Some even spent hundreds of dollars on professional line sitters, who would camp out overnight to reserve spots for clients at the front of the queue, giving people a much greater chance of ending up with a ringside seat to history.

Part of the interest came down to the key players in this salacious tale of sex, politics, power and money.

There was American porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she slept with trump in 2006 while he was married to his current wife Melania.

There was tabloid king David Pecker and his Australian offsider Dylan Howard, who agreed to bury damaging stories about Trump to help him win the 2016 election, in a practice known as “catch and kill”.

And there was former fixer-turned-felon-and-foe, Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels $US130,000, which Trump allegedly reimbursed by cooking the books.

Others, however, were less impressed.

“What’s going on here is an absolute farce and anyone in America should be embarrassed at the absolute miscarriage of justice that we’re seeing here,” said Donald Trump jnr, who appeared for the first time today to support his father at the court.

“The star witness in this case is a what? A nine times convicted liar and now a convicted thief? That is who they’re hanging their hat on? And the other one happens to be a porn star. Not exactly the ultimate form of jurisprudence here.”

The final week of evidence kicked off just as last week had ended: with Trump’s defence lawyer Todd Blanche seeking to discredit Cohen as a liar and criminal who was obsessed with his former boss and out for revenge.

It was a fairly successful cross-examination, too, in which Blanche sowed enough doubt about a phone call Cohen had earlier claimed he’d had with Trump about the Daniels’ deal.

Later, the mild-mannered defence lawyer scored another hit, by getting Cohen to confess he’d stolen $US60,000 from Trump’s family business while trying to rig a popularity poll to make Trump “the most famous businessman” in the contest.

“So you stole from the Trump Organisation, right?” Blanche asked Cohen.

“Yes, sir,” the typically hot-tempered 57-year-old replied, matter-of-factly.

But in an astonishing own goal, the defence team’s work was undermined when they made a last-minute decision to call brash New York lawyer Robert Costello to the stand in the hope of discrediting Cohen further.

The jury had earlier heard through Cohen that in 2018, shortly after he was raided by the FBI, Costello offered to create a “back channel” to the president via disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani, amid fears Cohen would “flip” and tell authorities about the hush money.

But the jury’s attention quickly turned to Costello’s own credibility as he became increasingly frustrated by Merchan sustaining the prosecution’s objections to his evidence.

At one point Costello rolled his eyes, stared the judge down, and muttered “geez” under his breath - resulting in the judge angrily clearing the entire courtroom to admonish him.

“I want to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom,” Merchan said. “If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say ‘geez,’ and you don’t say ‘strike it,’ because I’m the only one who can strike testimony in court.”

Trump’s team rested its case as soon as Costello left the stand, no doubt leaving a lasting impression on the jury of seven men and five women.

The 12 New Yorkers have now been dismissed for an extended Memorial Day long weekend, but will return on Tuesday when both sides present their closing arguments.

All 12 will then need to find beyond reasonable doubt that Trump falsified business records when he reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 by disguising the payment as a legal retainer, in order to cover up another crime - electoral violations, tax fraud, or campaign finance breaches - so as to sway the 2016 election that made him president.

It’s a complex case, but whatever the verdict it will forever shape one of the most consequential elections in history.

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