'Criminal intent': Legal expert maps out Manhattan DA's path to nailing Trump

28 May 2024

This Tuesday, May 28 in a Lower Manhattan courthouse, closing arguments are schedule to begin in former P resident Donald Trump's criminal hush money/falsified business records trial. After arguments have been made, jury deliberations will begin.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, this will mark the first time in the United States' 248-year history that jurors have evaluated a criminal case against a former president.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 28, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut describes some of the things that attorney Joshua Steinglass — a prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s office — needs to tell jurors during his closing argument in order to show criminal intent.

"In a nutshell," Aftergut explains, "there's powerful evidence that: (1) the business records falsely represented that Trump's $35,000 checks to Michael Cohen were for legal expenses when they were really reimbursements for Cohen's $130,000 purchase, on Trump's behalf, of Stormy Daniels' silence before the 2016 election, (2) Trump knew the representations in the records were false; (3) he either made them, or caused them to be made; and (4) he had a fraudulent intent."

The former federal prosecutor continues, "But for a felony conviction, the jury must also be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the fifth element — that Trump intended to commit violations of election law or tax law. If the jury is going to hang, it will almost certainly be over whether there's reasonable doubt over the existence of that intent."

In New York State, hush money payments per se are not a felony. But Aftergut notes that in that state, it is "illegal to conspire to promote a candidate by unlawful means."

"It appears that the judge will instruct jurors that they can 'mix and match,'" Aftergut notes. "In other words, jurors don't have to unanimously agree on which of the three possible 'other crimes' Trump intended to commit or conceal — just that he did intend to commit or conceal one of them. Because prosecutors produced no testimony of that intent, his lawyer will likely argue that even if Trump falsified his business records, he only intended to do so to keep the voting public in the dark about his sexual encounter with Daniels."

Aftergut adds, "That's why former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg's notes — described as 'smoking guns' —and the convoluted falsification scheme they describe are so important."

Dennis Aftergut's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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