‘Extremely busy’ Trump had no time to commit fraud, jury told

When Donald Trump was president he was ‘too busy’ to commit fraud, his lawyer has claimed, begging jurors not to convict him based on ‘lies’.

Donald Trump cuts a dejected figure as he emerges from the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. Picture: AFP

When Donald Trump was president he was “too busy” to commit fraud, his lawyer has claimed, begging jurors not to convict his client based on the “lies” from the prosecution’s star witness.

Todd Blanche insisted in his closing arguments that the case was about whether Mr Trump would have had the capacity to oversee the processing of business records after he was elected. “It matters where President Trump was during this time. He was constantly moving. He was very busy. He was frequently multi-tasking. People were constantly interrupting him. He was president of the United States,” he said.

The jury was expected to deliberate on Thursday on whether Mr Trump falsified business documents to conceal a $US130,000 hush-money payment to a porn actress on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, told the court that he paid Stormy Daniels the money and was then reimbursed by Mr Trump in cheques made to look like legal fees. Mr Trump denies the charges.

Mr Blanche told the jury they must focus on how Mr Cohen had lied to congress, “lied to you repeatedly” and “many, many times before you even met him”.

“He is the greatest liar of all time,” he said, his voice rising.

Mr Blanche claimed that Mr Trump did not attempt to defraud anyone but was, in fact, the victim of an extortion effort by Daniels, who threatened to go public with the claim that she had slept with him in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

Closing arguments in the first criminal case against a former president were made in a scaffold-clad courthouse in Lower Manhattan while the campaign teams of Mr Trump and President Joe Biden staged duelling press conferences in the road outside.

The Hollywood actor Robert De Niro appeared for the Biden campaign, flanked by two former police officers who had been injured when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

He declared that Mr Trump “could destroy the world, adding: “We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real-estate hustler masquerading as a big shot, a two-bit playboy lying his way into the tabloids.”

But Mr Trump, he said, was prepared to “use violence against anyone who stands in the way of his megalomania and greed. If Trump gets in, he will never leave.”

Mr Biden has long sought to avoid commenting on the criminal charges against his rival, for fear of appearing to confirm Mr Trump’s assertion that he has orchestrated them. Pointing to the courthouse, Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director, claimed that the event was being staged not “because of what’s going on over there” but because the trial had become the focus for the American media. “We’re here today because you all are here,” he said.

Jason Miller, Mr Trump’s adviser, countered that “the best Biden can do is roll out a washed-up actor”.

Mr Trump, 77, arrived in court accompanied by his sons Don Jr, 46, and Eric, 40, and for the first time by his daughter Tiffany, 32, taking his seat at the defence table with a sheaf of papers bearing quotes from conservative commentators criticising the case.

Stuck to the top sheet were several yellow notes, inscribed in black felt-tip pen, in capitals, in Mr Trump’s distinctive hand. “THIS CASE SHOULD BE DISMISSED BY THE JUDGE BUT HE IS TOTALLY BIASED”, the top one read.

Countering the prosecution’s claim that the payments were disguised as legal fees, Mr Blanche said Mr Cohen acknowledged doing some legal work for Mr Trump in 2017.

Playing on an acronym often applied to American sports stars, Mr Blanche said Mr Cohen was “the GLOAT – the greatest liar of all time”.

THE TIMES