Jury deliberations begin in Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ trial

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After hearing five weeks’ worth of evidence, a group of twelve New Yorkers have now commenced their discussions on the Manhattan “hush money” trial, which will ultimately decide the destiny of Donald Trump.

The judge named Juan Merchan told the group of twelve jurors (made up of seven men and five women) to discuss the case amongst themselves and to not let their desire to finish the trial influence their honest opinion on the facts presented to them.

When the judge listed the accusations against him, Trump - who is expected to become the Republican candidate for President - shook his head sometimes and seemed to be dozing off on other occasions. Afterwards, he spoke to journalists and said, "Even if someone as revered as Mother Teresa tried, she wouldn't be able to win against these accusations. The entire process is unfair."

The jurors listened to both sides of the prosecution and defence for nine hours on Tuesday. They were told different versions of what happened in relation to the payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Daniels had threatened to publicly share details of an extramarital encounter with Trump before the 2016 presidential election.

After the Access Hollywood tape was made public, where Trump boasted about touching women's private parts, the candidate became more worried about how it would affect voters, especially women. Joshua Steinglass, an assistant district attorney, informed the jury that the tape and subsequent reports could have resulted in Trump losing the entire election, and he was aware of it.

According to Steinglass, the money given to Daniels by Michael Cohen, a fixer for Trump, which amounted to $130,000 and came from Cohen's personal funds, was entirely related to the election campaign.

Donald Trump is accused of working together with Michael Cohen to come up with a plan called "catch and kill" to prevent a particular story from being revealed. This led to charges against him for breaking election and tax laws because he tried to hide the reimbursement as lawful business expenses when it was not.

Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, stated that his client's utmost priority was his family and particularly his wife, following the release of the tape. Blanche argued that there was no solid proof to link Trump to the payments made to Daniels in 2016 except for Michael Cohen's testimony, who has a history of being found guilty of perjury and fraud.

Blanche stated that the main witness for the prosecution has continuously told lies to you. He has lied to every branch of Congress and even federal judges on several occasions, making it impossible to convict someone based on Michael Cohen's words.

According to the laws in New York, all 34 criminal charges must receive a unanimous decision from the jury. In case the jury is unable to reach a decision after considerable discussion, the case would result in a mistrial. The Manhattan district attorney would then have to decide whether to try the case again or not.

In case Trump is found guilty, it's improbable that he will be sentenced to imprisonment since it would be his first offense. It's probable that he'll file an appeal against the judgment, which would then take several months to reach a resolution. Additionally, Trump is confronting three other legal cases which are becoming less and less probable that they will be prosecuted before the November election.