Donald Trump trial: Jury deliberations begin as former president appears pessimistic outside court
The panel of judges presiding over Donald Trump's trial involving hush money concluded their initial day of discussion. Meanwhile, the past commander-in-chief voiced his opinion on how the trial was unjust as he addressed reporters situated outside of the courthouse.
Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts for changing business records to hide a payment of $130,000 to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels. This is supposed to be part of a plan to conceal information that could have negatively impacted his campaign to become president in 2016.
The prosecution alleges that the money given to Ms Daniels through Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen was inaccurately categorized as "legal expenses", intentionally concealing the actual purpose of the payments.
Trump rejects the allegations of the affair and refutes all accusations filed against him.
Currently, the 12 individuals on the jury at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York are in the process of fully considering the evidence presented to them over a span of four weeks. This evidence includes statements from 22 individuals who shared their testimony, as well as hours of lawyers' closing arguments.
On the initial day of contemplation, the panel notified the judge twice, and made a request to reexamine jury directives and the declarations of National Enquirer's owner David Pecker and Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Mr. Cohen.
The people in charge have expressed a particular interest in hearing again what Mr Pecker and Mr Cohen had to say about the meeting that took place at Trump Tower back in 2015. During that meeting, Mr Pecker committed to finding and pointing out any unfavorable news stories about the presidential candidate at the time, Donald Trump.
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They also asked to listen again to Mr. Pecker's statements made during a telephone conversation regarding his agreement with Karen McDougal, who claims to have had a romantic involvement with Trump. Additionally, they sought to review his choice to decline the sale of her narrative rights to Trump.
The jury won't receive a written record of the proceedings, and the evidence will be presented orally in front of them.
According to Judge Juan M. Merchan, it will require a considerable time to collect the required portions, and approximately 30 minutes to recite them aloud.
Once more, Trump expresses intense anger and criticism.
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When Trump left the courtroom and heard the instructions that were given to the jury, he sounded very negative and hopeless. He said again that the trial was extremely unjust and unfair, and mentioned that even if a well-respected person like Mother Teresa was in his position, they would not be able to clear their name. However, he did express some uncertainty about the outcome and mentioned that time would tell how he fares in the trial.
While the jury was deliberating, he stayed at the courthouse and published multiple posts on his Truth Social app expressing dissatisfaction with the trial.
Want to know if Trump can become president if he's found guilty? Check out our article. In other news, De Niro made an appearance outside Trump's trial.
On a particular blog post, Trump wrote in all caps that he was not aware of the charges in the case which he believed was unfair, even though he was physically present in the court when the judge explained the charges to the jury.
The group of people assigned to make a decision will begin discussing again at 9:30am on Thursday.
