The fixation on witnesses and whether their words will prove or disprove former President Donald Trump committed a felony to manipulate the 2016 election by fudging business records in his criminal hush money case is only part of the process to render a verdict.
Jim Trusty, who represented Trump as his attorney before he cut ties, pointed to a seemingly monotonous directive from the judge that will come further down the road that he says could end up becoming the most explosive moment of the trial.
"I think the real battle that's shaping up, aside from everything about [Michael] Cohen and the cross is redirecting the jury back to Cohen's lack of credibility — but the jury instructions."
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How Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan handles the instructions to the jurors at the end of the evidentiary process before they weigh in on it is going to be massive, he said.
Trusty admitted the jury instructions are typically "a boring thing for non-lawyers" and said it's equivalent to "watching paint dry."
Not in this case.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money scheme executed by his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to offset exposure to damaging information in the weeks before the 2016 election.
In the hush money trial against Trump, it will be a big deal what specifically Merchan advises the jurors before they break into deliberations.
"Does this judge tell the jury that President Trump, to be convicted, has to have an exclusively personal motivation or can it be mixed?"
He pointed to how Hope Hicks, a former White House official and longtime Trump family confidante, appeared to have offered "mixed" reasons for why the former president bought Daniels' silence.
"Hope gave mixed," said Trusty. "She said at one point, 'He's worried about politics,' and then at another point. '[He's] worried about the wife.'"
Trusty mentioned how Hicks at one point appeared to recall Trump fearing hurting former First Lady Melania Trump. But she also said that Trump himself wanted to bury Daniels’ story because “it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”
If Merchan as Trusty stated "wants to put the finger on the scale here" and offered a lot of latitude with their decision — possibly saying to the jurors that "any element of political preservation is enough to support a conviction" —Trump could be in big trouble.
He stressed: "So the instructions the jury gets at the end of the case is absolutely a nuclear moment as to guilt or innocence."
