“The fundamental truth is that you take your witnesses as you find them, and inevitably the sleazy, unethical and dubious conduct that was carried out by the witnesses will leave them vulnerable to attack by the defense,” said Steven M. Cohen, a law professor and former federal prosecutor. “But those witnesses will no doubt be quick to remind the jury that they were not the authors of that conduct. Mr. Trump was.”
On Friday, prosecutors questioned Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman, about the Trump campaign’s frenzied effort to contain the fallout when the stories of Ms. McDougal and Ms. Daniels leaked. During cross-examination by Mr. Bove, Ms. Hicks began to cry as she recounted working for the man who launched her career.
But Mr. Bove used his final question of the week to highlight something she said she knew nothing about — the records. The question appeared meant to convey that whatever dramatic details she provided for the jury, none proved that Mr. Trump had committed a crime.
In the coming days, prosecutors are expected to pivot to the accusation that Mr. Trump falsified the records related to Mr. Cohen’s reimbursement. They are likely to question employees at Mr. Trump’s company who handled the payment, and then, in what could be the crucial moment of the trial, call Mr. Cohen to the stand to say that the former president engineered the false records.
At the climax of Mr. Colangelo’s opening statement, after detailing the prosecution’s evidence of the conspiracy, the deal-making and the made-for-tabloid scandal, he returned to the business records.
“Read the documents, the emails, the text messages, the bank statements, the handwritten notes, all of it,” he implored the jury. “It inescapably leads to only one conclusion: Donald Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.”
