Trump’s Hush-Money Case Heads to the Jury: Takeaways From Closing Arguments

As the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump began its seventh week, the prosecution and the defense made their final pitches to jurors, sending the landmark case into deliberations on Wednesday.

A defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, spent three hours Tuesday hammering Michael D. Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, including accusing him of perjury. He attacked Stormy Daniels, the porn star whose account of a tryst with Mr. Trump in 2006 set in motion the charges the former president faces.

The prosecution countered with an even longer, more detailed summation, pushing into the evening. A prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, guided jurors through reams of evidence they had introduced and elicited, including testimony, emails, text messages and recordings.

Mr. Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying 34 business records to hide Mr. Cohen’s reimbursement for a $130,000 hush-money payment he made to Ms. Daniels. Mr. Trump has denied the charges and the sexual encounter.

Once deliberations begin Wednesday, no one knows how long they will take. If convicted, Mr. Trump — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — could face prison or probation.

Here are five takeaways from closing arguments and Mr. Trump’s 21st day on trial.

‘Michael Cohen is a liar’ was a refrain. It may be the defense’s best bet.

“The human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”

“An M.V.P. of liars”

“The greatest liar of all time.”

Those were words Mr. Blanche used to describe Mr. Cohen, saying Mr. Trump’s former fixer and lawyer had “an ax to grind” after being passed over for a White House job and pleading guilty to federal charges related to the hush-money payment.

Mr. Blanche’s calculation was simple: Mr. Cohen had linked Mr. Trump to the payment of Ms. Daniels, saying the former president directed him to “just do it.”

“What Mr. Trump knew in 2016, you only know from one source,” he said. “And that’s Michael Cohen.”

If jurors don’t believe Mr. Cohen, they may have a hard time finding Mr. Trump guilty.

The defense portrayed the payment as a workaday transaction.

Mr. Blanche sought to portray the conduct in the case as largely business as usual and not crime, including the use of a nondisclosure agreement to silence Ms. Daniels.

Mr. Blanche also suggested there was no hard evidence of any untoward effort to influence the election.

“It doesn’t matter if there was a conspiracy to try to win an election,” Mr. Blanche said. “Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy,” he added, to get a candidate elected.

Indeed, he suggested that Mr. Trump was a victim of behavior equivalent to extortion, including by Ms. Daniels. He said the payoff “ended very well for Ms. Daniels, financially speaking.”

Stagecraft made an impact.

Mr. Blanche homed in on an Oct. 24, 2016, phone call that lasted about a minute and a half. In it, Mr. Cohen said, he had discussed the payoff with Mr. Trump. Mr. Blanche suggested Mr. Cohen had perjured himself, suggesting the call was actually to Mr. Trump’s bodyguard about pranks a teenager had played on him.

Mr. Steinglass, the prosecutor, had a dramatic response: Pretending to be Mr. Cohen, Mr. Steinglass feigned a conversation in which he was able both to tell the bodyguard about the prank and update Mr. Trump. It took less time than the actual phone call.

It was a sharp rebuttal to what had been a high point for the defense.

Mr. Steinglass directly addressed the defense’s focus on Mr. Cohen’s flaws, calling him an “ultimate insider” who had “useful reliable information.”

“They want to make this case about Michael Cohen: It isn’t,” Mr. Steinglass said. “It’s about Donald Trump.”

Prosecutors presented a unified tale.

In Mr. Steinglass’s closing argument, he focused on telling a sweeping story about fraud on American voters.

He argued that an agreement Mr. Trump struck with The National Enquirer to buy and bury unflattering stories was a “subversion of democracy” perpetuated by a “covert arm” of the 2016 Trump campaign. He added that the fraud deceived voters “in a coordinated fashion,” preventing the American people from deciding for themselves whether they cared that Mr. Trump slept with a porn star or not.

His arguments, intended to rebut Mr. Blanche’s minimization of the election fraud claims, could be crucial. Prosecutors need to show that the business records were falsified to hide a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.

Now, we wait.

The jury will receive its instructions from the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, on Wednesday morning.

Mr. Trump will stay at the courtroom, or thereabouts, as will the massive press corps that has descended on Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building. The jury will retreat to discuss the case, perhaps sending out notes for help from the judge or to ask to review evidence.

Then — barring a hung jury — a verdict will come, bringing a celebration for Mr. Trump or for Manhattan prosecutors. Either way, however, the first criminal trial of an American president will be complete.