Former president Donald Trump speaks after leaving the courtroom at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 22, 2024, in New York. Opening statements in Trump’s historic hush money trial are set to begin. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, Pool)
Former president Donald Trump’s lead defense attorney extolled his client’s innocence before a collection of Manhattan jurors, alternate jurors, officials, and a packed gallery in court late Monday morning.
“President Trump is innocent,” defense attorney Todd Blanche began, according to a report by Courthouse News reporter Erik Uebelacker. “President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan DA should never have brought this case. You’ve heard this already a few times this morning and you’re going to hear it a lot more during this trial.”
The 45th president’s lawyer reportedly went on to say his client had “earned” the right to be called “president,” buckling jurors in for repetition of the honorific usage of the title throughout the likely long-and-winding trial — and perhaps implicitly striking back against the state’s theory that Trump hoodwinked his way into the White House.
Earlier in the morning, the prosecution gave its own terse opening statement framing the ex-president as the lead co-conspirator in a particularly untoward scheme to defraud the millions of people who voted in the 2016 presidential election by doctoring 34 distinct business records issued by his namesake family business empire.
To hear the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office tell it, Trump enlisted some of his considerable allies in law and media — and considerable funds to the tune of $130,000 — to keep incriminating tell-alls about his alleged adultery with an adult film actress out of the public eye. To that end, a series of payments were allegedly made. And then allegedly covered up.
The Empire State’s narrative, however, is deceptively simple, the defense argued in the drafty justice center near Chinatown.
“What the people just did … is present to you what appeared to be a very clean, nice story,” Blanche told the jury, according to a report by New York Daily News reporter Molly Crane-Newman. “It is not.”
The short version of that story goes like this: Trump’s infamous fixer Michael Cohen, 57, himself now a convicted felon, first paid off Stormy Daniels 45, using his own money by way of a shell company; later, only after much grumbling and telegraphed annoyance did the by-then 45th president use Trump Organization stationary and checks to disguise the porn star’s payoff when he paid Cohen back.
Over the course of this alleged cover-up, Trump falsified a total of 12 ledger entries, 11 invoices, and 11 checks, the state earlier told the jury.
Most of those allegations simply are not true, the defense countered.
The 77-year-old defendant erected a “wall” between himself and his business after assuming the presidency in 2017, Blanche went on to say, according to a report by Just Security fellow Adam Klasfeld.
“The 34 counts, ladies and gentleman, are really just 34 pieces of paper,” the defense attorney reportedly said, later adding: “President Trump had nothing to do with the invoice, with the check being generated, or with the entry on the ledger.”
But, Blanche acknowledged, Trump retained some disbursal authority — and signed several of those checks “while running the country.”
“That’s not a crime,” the defense attorney argued.
While reportedly seeking to humanize the defendant as a “man” a “husband,” a “father” and a “person” just like many of those peers sitting in judgment themselves, Blanche repeatedly took aim at Cohen. Trump’s current attorney characterized his former attorney as fundamentally dishonest, guilty of perjury, and “obsessed with Trump.”
As for state’s theory of the case, Blanche noted that nondisclosure agreements, such as the one signed by Daniels, are legal contracts.
Integral to the prosecution’s idea of the alleged conspiracy is the role played by David Pecker, 72, the onetime CEO of the National Enquirer‘s parent company, American Media Inc. The supermarket checkout stand publishing giant is well-known for the controversial practice called “catch and kill,” in which a publication buys a damaging story just to bury it. Under the terms of the particular arrangement, the prosecution claims, Pecker would and did lend his publishing company to the cause of Trump’s winning 2016 campaign.
“This sort of thing happens regularly,” Blanche said, saying “catch and kill” in a mocking tone
Before wrapping, he asks jurors to use their common sense
“We’re New Yorkers; it’s why we’re here…If you do that, there will be a very swift—a very swift—not guilty verdict”
— Molly Crane-Newman (@molcranenewman) April 22, 2024
Pecker was the first witness called by the state in the historic trial of a former president, giving abbreviated testimony in light of Passover. As Law&Crime previously reported, Trump’s team worked to keep proceedings somewhat limited during the dayslong Jewish holiday.
The defense attorney also mocked how the prosecution is presenting their case against the defendant as a man with a corrupt motive.
“I have a spoiler alert, there’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” Blanche argued, “it’s called democracy.”
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