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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is going back through all of the details. He is showing the jury once again Trump's comments at an October 2016 rally in North Carolina, where he denies a story about women alleging misconduct.

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"Stormy Daniels was a walking, talking reminder that the defendant was not only words," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says.

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"She would have totally undermined (Donald Trump's) strategy for spinning away the 'Access Hollywood' tape," he says

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Prosecutor: Here is the defendant in Greensboro in October 2016 [CSPAN video played].. And here, Rodriguez gets overzealous, saying that Stormy Daniels had sex multiple times with the defendant, which Ms. Daniels has never said. Howard is suddenly more interested

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 28, 2024

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is now walking through how things changed for publicist Gina Rodriguez trying to sell her client Stormy Daniels' story when the "Access Hollywood" tape came out.
Steinglass is going through texts between National Enquirer editor Howard and Rodriguez in the hours after the tape went public.
Steinglass argues that part of the reason the "extortion narrative is so bogus" is because the negotiations happened between Howard and Rodriguez about AMI buying the story, and did not involve Cohen or Trump at all when Daniels' manager thought that AMI would buy the story.

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Lol! Steinglass putting the jury to sleep! https://t.co/7pj1OAwxf0

— Monie (@MoniePJ) May 28, 2024

SpreadsheetAg said:

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Lol! Steinglass putting the jury to sleep! https://t.co/7pj1OAwxf0

— Monie (@MoniePJ) May 28, 2024

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ADA Steinglass stretching like Armstrong saying that because the defendant, President Trump, whatever you think of him, was a savvy businessman, he knew Cohen, The Greatest Liar of All Time, would falsify documents and give false reasons for the alleged payment to Stormy Daniels.

— Andrew H. Giuliani (@AndrewHGiuliani) May 28, 2024

We're really going day-by-day at this point.

It's 4:32 p.m., and Steinglass is only at 10/17/16.

I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone that the actual alleged falsification of business records didn't occur until months later in 2017.

— Tyler McBrien (@TylerMcBrien) May 28, 2024

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass now skips quickly through slides showing messages and call records during a two-week stretch when Michael Cohen gave "a barrage of excuses" to Keith Davidson to put off paying Stormy Daniels from October 12 to 26, 2016.

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is now showing the false paperwork Michael Cohen provided on October 13, 2016, to First Republic Bank about Resolution Consultants LLC, the first LLC Cohen said he opened up to facilitate payments.
Steinglass tells the jury that Cohen falsified the business record to open the bank account.
Blanche told the jury there's no proof beyond Cohen's words that Trump knew anything about any of those records or Cohen's activities.

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Prosecutors are zeroing in on the key dates at the center of their hush money case against former President Donald Trump as they continue to deliver their closing argument.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors tried to prove Trump falsified business records to cover up hush money payments made to prevent adult film star Stormy Daniel's claim of an affair with Trump from becoming public before the 2016 presidential election.
Here's a timeline CNN compiled of key events in the case:

• August 2015: Trump meets with then-American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker at Trump Tower, prosecutors say, where Pecker agrees to be the "eyes and ears" for Trump's campaign and flag any negative stories to Trump's then-fixer Michael Cohen.
• September 2016: Trump discusses a $150,000 hush money payment understood to be for former Playboy model Karen McDougal with Michael Cohen, who secretly records the conversation. McDougal has alleged she had an extramarital affair with Trump beginning in 2006, which he has denied.
• October 7, 2016: The Washington Post releases an "Access Hollywood" video from 2005 in which Trump uses vulgar language to describe his sexual approach to women with show host Billy Bush.
• October 27, 2016: According to prosecutors, Cohen pays Daniels $130,000 through her attorney via a shell company in exchange for her silence about an affair she allegedly had with Trump in 2006. This $130,000 sum is separate from the $150,000 paid to McDougal. Trump has publicly denied having any affairs and has denied making the payments.
• November 8, 2016: Trump secures the election to become the 45th President of the United States.
• February 2017: Prosecutors say Cohen meets with Trump in the Oval Office to confirm how he would be reimbursed for the hush money payment Cohen fronted to Daniels. Under the plan, Cohen would send a series of false invoices requesting payment for legal services he performed pursuant to a retainer agreement and receive monthly checks for $35,000 for a total of $420,000 to cover the payment, his taxes and a bonus, prosecutors alleged. Prosecutors also allege there was never a retainer agreement.
• January 2018: The Wall Street Journal breaks news about the hush money payment Cohen made to Daniels in 2016.

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Casual Cynic said:

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So who is the actual victim in all of this? Cohen got paid, Stormy got paid, only Trump had anything taken from him.

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aggiehawg said:

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4stringAg said:

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Referring to Donald Trump's meeting with David Pecker in 2015, Joshua Steinglass tells the jury:
"The real game changer of this meeting was the catch-and-kill component. And that's the illegal part. Because once money starts changing hands on behalf of a campaign, that's federal election campaign finance violations."

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So Steinglass is free to tell the jury what are and aren't campaign finance violations but Trumps team couldn't present an actual expert witness on this to talk to the jury because this judge wouldn't let them.

What a joke

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And Merchan's excuse was that any discussion of election law and campaogn finance law would just confuse the jury. the implication being that those were not part of the prosecution's case. That's how bad this case stinks.

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Thought: Sometimes the best Closing Argument is a simple, clear and to the point Summation. That is NOT what ADA Steinglass is doing here this afternoon.

— Andrew H. Giuliani (@AndrewHGiuliani) May 28, 2024

MouthBQ98 said:

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Yeah, can't they object that the prosecution is instructing the jury on the elements of the law, as versus the Judge? I guess they have to be trying to do that.

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Joshua Steinglass argues that part of the reason the defense's "extortion narrative is so bogus," is because the negotiations happened between Dylan Howard and Gina Rodriguez about AMI buying the story, not involving Michael Cohen or Donald Trump at all when Stormy Daniels' manager thought that AMI would buy the story.
Howard was the editor of the National Enquirer while Rodriguez was Daniels' manager.

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"Make no mistake, AMI is involved here. AMI is acting as the campaign's eyes and ears, just as (David) Pecker told Mr. Trump he would do," the prosecutor says.

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Remember: Donald Trump's attorney Todd Blanche, in his closing arguments, said the Daniels' situation started out as "an extortion."

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is now walking through more phone calls as the negotiations over the deal briefly fell apart.
He is ticking through various phone conversations, including, he notes, rare calls on the weekend involving Michael Cohen and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
Steinglass appears to have quickened his pace flipping quickly though pages of phone logs and messages that prosecutors say reveal the timeline of the scheme unfolding. He's told the panel a few times since the mid-afternoon break that they'll have access to the evidence during deliberations if they want to read the exhibits more closely.

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Joshua Steinglass continues to quickly skim through Michael Cohen's call log.
"Again, I'm not going to try to bore you with every single record here," the prosecutor says.
He notes there were "six calls in three years between" Cohen and Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg.
"Well, two of them happened the three days leading up to the Stormy Daniels payment," Steinglass says.

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Ag with kids said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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Yeah, can't they object that the prosecution is instructing the jury on the elements of the law, as versus the Judge? I guess they have to be trying to do that.

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Steinglass more or less continuously using visuals, but in sophisticated fashion, isn't repeating what's up there or telling jury to look. rather just clicking through. again, this is a very well-rehearsed summation

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) May 28, 2024

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is pointing to a call between Michael Cohen and Trump that lasted three minutes 30 minutes, records show. The call came before Cohen went across the street to the bank to open the account that would complete the wire transfer to Daniel's attorney.
"This is damning right here," he says of the call.
Steinglass now shows jurors again the bank records that Cohen submitted to open an account for Essential Consultants LLC, which he notes was false, claiming it was a real estate consulting company.

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass to the jury: "It's difficult to conceive of a case with more corroboration than this one."

— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) May 28, 2024

Steinglass addresses Trump's signature being absent from the agreement between Daniels and Resolution Consultants LLC.

"It's true that Mr. Trump didn’t sign these documents but that’s kind of the whole point," Stienglass says. To keep Trump out of it.

— Katherine Fung (@katherinekfung) May 28, 2024

DannyDuberstein said:

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I'd be careful with assuming too much from sleepy jurors in this situation. They may not be engaged because they already made up their mind to convict weeks ago

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Im Gipper said:

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So far, Steinfeld has done a decent job of connecting the dots. In a civil case, I'd say he maybe came close to preponderance of the evidence.

But this is criminal. And there is TONS of reasonable doubt on both the actual fraudulent document part as well as the predicate crimes.


Its a lib NY jury, so I won't predicate an acquittal, but man there is a mountain of "reasonable doubt" here!

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AggieUSMC said:

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DannyDuberstein said:

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I'd be careful with assuming too much from sleepy jurors in this situation. They may not be engaged because they already made up their mind to convict weeks ago

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Well, if that's the case, there's nothing anyone can do about that.

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Biden Administration Stations Circus Clowns, Jugglers, Lion Tamers Outside Trump Trial https://t.co/RLfGLSNSwf pic.twitter.com/aIG0FUz6yb

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) May 28, 2024

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The jury is now seeing a record for the wire transfer from Michael Cohen to Keith Davidson calling the $130,000 payment a retainer.
The prosecutor says, "This wasn't a retainer, it was a pay-off."
"Now it's true that Mr. Trump didn't sign these documents himself. That's kind of the whole point," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says.
Steinglass notes that the day Cohen signed the wire transfer document, October 28, Cohen had a call with Trump.

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says, "It's no surprise" the payoff happened 10 years after the encounter between Trump and Stormy Daniels.

"And that's because the defendant's primary concern was not his family, but the election," he says.

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A juror smiled softly and raised her eyebrows when prosecutor Joshua Steinglass joked, "Hope, you're getting all of this."

He was running through a flurry of calls between Hope Hicks, Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson.

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is ticking through another flurry of calls on November 4, 2016, when the Wall Street Journal story on the Karen McDougal payment came out, including calls involving Michael Cohen, David Pecker and Hope Hicks.

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Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is making a point of saying that Trump lied in his statement that he had no knowledge of the AMI deal with Karen McDougal.
Steinglass tells jurors they know it's false because there's a tape of him from September talking about it, and AMI CEO David Pecker testified they had a phone call about it in June.

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DannyDuberstein said:

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AggieUSMC said:

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DannyDuberstein said:

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I'd be careful with assuming too much from sleepy jurors in this situation. They may not be engaged because they already made up their mind to convict weeks ago

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Well, if that's the case, there's nothing anyone can do about that.

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Didn't say there was. I just think the "I'm counting at least 6 not guilty votes" based on the perception of who is paying attention is very unreliable and misguided in this case

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