Prosecutors present evidence at Trump trial

On Monday, during the trial of Donald Trump in New York the prosecutor’s office completed evidence stage in the case in which the former US president is accused of illegally spending funds from the election fund during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Over the course of 15 days, 20 prosecution witnesses appeared before the jury. Their testimony was intended to bolster the prosecution’s case that Trump illegally used campaign money to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an intimate relationship with Trump a decade earlier and threatened to go public with the story. She received $130,000 from Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who was reimbursed by Trump under the guise of legal fees. The prosecutor’s office needs to prove that Donald Trump knew about these payments and made them in order to influence the outcome of the election.

During the trial, Stormy Daniels testified as a prosecution witness and spoke in graphic detail about the evening and night she said she spent with Donald Trump. Trump denies having intimate contact with Daniels. The prosecution’s most important witness was Michael Cohen. He testified for four days, insisting that in paying Daniels he was acting on Trump’s instructions, that the $130,000 was reimbursed to him with Donald Trump’s knowledge. Trump’s defense tried to portray Cohen to the jury as an untrustworthy liar, settling scores with a former employer, blaming Trump for personal gain. On Monday, Trump’s lawyers managed to get Cohen to admit that he embezzled $30,000 of the $50,000 the Trump Organization gave him to pay for services to a technology company.

Former Michael Cohen adviser Robert Costello will testify as a defense witness on Tuesday, claiming that during a conversation with him several years ago, Cohen admitted that Trump knew nothing about the payments to Stormy Daniels. Costello is expected to be the defense’s only witness after which both sides will make closing statements. The jury is tentatively scheduled to begin deliberating the case next week.