Live updates: Trump hush money trial closing arguments (2024)

Former President Donald Trump has arrived at the Manhattan courthouse to attend his criminal hush money trial.

Closing arguments are expected to begin soon.

For over six weeks now, Donald Trump has woken up at his usual early hour and started phoning his friends and allies with a familiar grievance: his criminal hush money trial.

As he has endured long hours inside a stuffy courtroom with little grandeur, Trump has complained about the proceedings, as well as the room itself, to nearly anyone who will listen,sources familiar with the matter say.

But in recent days, Trump has zeroed in on a new issue, or at least new to him: that the final argument the jury hears will come from the prosecution’s team, not his,according to those sources.The former president only realized in the last several days that the closing arguments will happen the opposite way the opening statements did, where his team presented after the prosecution had first laid out its case.

Trump took that complaint public on Sunday.

While both sides will ultimately be telling different versions of the same story to the jury today, they have one concern in common. The prosecution and the defense both feel the need to reiterate key parts of the story, worried about how the jury has just had a week off and needs to be reminded about much of what they heard and saw.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche will present first Tuesday morning with closing arguments expected to take 2.5 to 3 hours, a person familiar tells CNN.

While the lawyers have no time limit, the Trump team thinks three hours is the maximum time a jury wants to listen to a closing argument — and also, the timing is also part of a strategy to discourage prosecutor Joshua Steinglass from continuing his closing into Wednesday morning.

Essentially, Trump’s lawyers do not want the lead prosecutor to have another crack at the jury before they retire to deliberate. The goal is to wrap up early enough to make it hard for Steinglass to continue into another day — all without annoying the jury, the source explained.

What prosecutors are expected to say today: In their closing, Trump’s team will revisit many of the arguments they made during the trial — that allegedly falsified documents were not falsified because Michael Cohen was working as a lawyer to President Trump in 2017, according to the person familiar.

They will revisit documents to support this argument and how the $420,000 Cohen made in 2017 was similar to what he made on 2016 from working for Trump. Lawyers will also go back to the January 2017 email from former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg to Cohen asking Trump's then-lawyer and fixer to send the agreement they had just discussed.They will also argue that if documents were falsified, it was Cohen who falsified them by lying about how much he was owed, according to the source.

Lawyers will also dispute this was part of a conspiracy to influence the election. They will steer clear of any arguments about political motivations for bringing this case, but might mention the case is old and let jurors draw their own conclusions.

Lastly, they will focus on how Cohen cannot be trusted, hitting all the obvious points, trying to personalize for the jury why nobody would want their personal freedom to rest on the word of Cohen.

The Trump team does not feel that Robert Costello’s disastrous appearance on the witness stand last week will ultimately hurt their case or their arguments about Cohen.

Donald Trump departed Trump Tower moments ago and is en route to the Manhattan court.

His defense attorneys will be first to present their closing arguments as his historic criminal trial winds down. Trump's attorney Todd Blanche will present first, followed by Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a presentation of summations which is expected to last all day, according to people familiar with the matter. There are no rebuttals.

Judge Juan Merchan previously said he expects to give the jury instructions on Wednesday which should take about an hour. While this portion is expected to happen at some point on Wednesday, as with all court-related matters the timing is not set in stone.

What happens next: Then a jury of 12 — seven men and five women — will determine whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in connection with allegedly concealing reimbursem*nts to his then-lawyer for a purported hush money scheme to silence an adult film star about an affair shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

CNN's Kristina Sgueglia contributed reporting to this post.

Former President Donald Trump will be joined in court by several family members and allies today including:

Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Lara Trump have attended court prior to today's proceedings.

Ahead of the hush money trial, Judge Juan Merchan imposed a gag order on Donald Trump which blocks him from speaking out about potential witnesses and most people in or associated with the court or the New York district attorney’s office.

In that initial order — imposed in March — Merchan also said thatTrump can’t make statements about attorneys, court staff or the family members of prosecutors or lawyers intended to interfere with the case. Trump is also barred from making statements about any potential or actual juror.

The ruling also prevents Trump from criticizing his former attorney, Michael Cohen, or adult film star Stormy Daniels, both witnesses in the trial.

The former president, Merchan said in his order, has a history of making “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” statements against people at all levels of the justice system, including jurors. The order does not prevent Trump from talking about New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is a public figure, or Merchan himself.

The gag order was imposed after Trump repeatedly attacked the district attorney’s case and those involved with it ahead of what would be the first criminal trial of a former president. Trump criticized Merchan, his daughter and one of Bragg’s prosecutors in the hours before Merchan issued his order in March.

Since then, Trump has been fined for violating the order 10 times and the judge warned on May 6 that "this court will have to consider a jail sanction" if the former president violates it again. Merchan fined Trump $1,000 for the violation ruling on May 6. A week prior, thejudge fined Trump $9,000for nine previous violations of the judge’s gag order. Violations of the gag order are punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, by jail time of up to 30 days, or both.

During remarks before entering the courtroom for the trial's proceedings, Trump has repeatedly railed against the gag order and the case. He has also relied on allies to deliver attacks outside the court.

Closing arguments will take place today in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial.

Here's what to expect from both sides, according to people familiar with the matter.

The defense: Trump's attorney Todd Blanche is expected to focus on the credibility of Michael Cohen. Cohen, who was Trump's former attorney and fixer, was the prosecution's only witness to directly tie the former president to the alleged cover-up of payments. Blanche is also expected to focus on witnesses the jury never heard from during the trial.

In addition, Blanche is expected to argue there was no crime and the documents were not false since Cohen was Trump’s attorney and continued to work for him into 2017, the people said.

On cross-examination, Blanche challenged Cohen’s memory of a phone call he testified to having with Trump in late October 2016. Cohen testified he called Schiller who put Trump on the line and Cohen told him the deal with Stormy Daniels was resolved and they were moving forward with the payment. Blanche confronted Cohen with text messages he had with Schiller leading up to the phone call that were focused entirely on a teenage prankster, suggesting Cohen made up the call with Trump.

The prosecution: Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is expected to tie together text messages, phone logs, other witnesses’ testimony, and the 34 allegedly falsified documents to corroborate Cohen’s testimony.

Donald Trump's legal team is led by Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, two former federal prosecutors from New York, and Susan Necheles, a veteran criminal defense lawyer with deep experience in New York and with appearing before Judge Juan Merchan.

Here are the key things to know about Trump's legal team:

The court was dark for a week, a scheduling decision Judge Juan Merchan chose so the final stages of the trial weren’t broken up by a four-day Memorial Day weekend.

Merchan told jurors to return on Tuesday for closing arguments, which are expected to take the whole day. Once the jury gets its instructions, Trump’s fate will be in its hands.

Here's a look atthe next steps in the trial:

Closing arguments:Attorneys for the defense and prosecution each will give a closing argument appealing to the jury that will soon consider the case.

Jury instruction or jury charge:The judge instructs the jury as to the charges they must consider against the defendant and the laws governing their deliberations.

Jury deliberation:Apanel of 12 jurorsconsiders the evidence presented at trial and charges against the defendant. The jury must be unanimous in its decision. The jury can communicate with the court and ask questions about the case with the court through handwritten notes.

Verdict:The jury will notify the court that they’ve reached a verdict. The verdict will then be read in court and jurors will be polled to confirm the verdict read in court reflects their own vote.

Sentencing:If the jury reaches a guilty verdict, the judge sentences the defendant, typically after a sentencing hearing at a later date.