Opening statements are getting underway Monday morning in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, as prosecutors and the defense begin laying out their case for jurors.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a “hush money” payment during his 2016 campaign. Defense attorneys are expected to argue Trump has been charged on flimsy evidence from an untrustworthy key witness.
Arriving at the courthouse, Trump claimed the trial was “election interference” and part of an effort to keep him off the campaign trail. He called the case a “witch hunt” and “a shame.”
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will have 40 minutes to present their opening statements. Trump’s attorneys will then have 25 minutes. The proceedings are not being televised, since New York law doesn’t allow recording of criminal proceedings. CBS News has reporters in the courtroom and in a nearby overflow room watching the trial.
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The “hush money” case
The moment is nearly eight years in the making, dating back to just days before the 2016 election, when that witness, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter.
Prosecutors say Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment in 12 monthly installments during the first year of his presidency, portraying them as checks for ongoing legal services in a scheme to conceal the “hush money.” Trump was charged last year with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies having had a sexual encounter.
He seethed about the case last week as the trial got underway with jury selection. Trump lashed out at Bragg in public appearances and posted about Bragg, Judge Juan Merchan and Cohen on social media. But inside the courtroom, Trump was reserved, speaking rarely and even appearing to nod off from time to time, as 192 potential jurors were narrowed to a dozen, plus six alternates.
That group is the first panel of jurors in U.S. history to sit in judgment of a former president in a criminal case.
After opening statements, prosecutors are expected to call as their first witness David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, according to a source familiar with the plan.
He’s expected to testify that he, Cohen and Trump orchestrated a “catch and kill” scheme, in which Pecker’s publication purchased the rights to negative stories about Trump and suppressed them, while publishing unflattering stories about Trump’s opponents.
