'He should be acquitted': Expert says hush money prosecutors didn't prove Trump's guilt

One criminal defense attorney believes former President Donald Trump should be acquitted in his criminal hush money trial.

Brandi Harden appeared on CNN Tuesday to accuse Manhattan District Attorney's office prosecutors of failing to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump was aware of hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

"They have not," she said. "They have absolutely not."

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To back her claim, Harden pointed to what she described as the lack of smoking-gun evidence.

"People keep talking about what might be missing or what's not quite there — that is, in fact reasonable doubt," Harden said. '"When things are missing, when there are facts that you want to hear and you look to the prosecution and say, 'So where is that thing?' — that means unfortunately here, he should be acquitted."

Harden believes prosecutors did not prove Trump had specific knowledge of the payments orchestrated through his former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen.

"There are certain things that the government has to prove here, certain specifics that he knew — he had specific knowledge of these things," she said. "Those are just things I think that that have fallen by the wayside. They just have not establish those things in this particular case."

The six-week trial was mostly dominated by testimony from prosecution witnesses such as former National Enquirer parent publisher and Trump chum David Pecker, who confirmed a "catch and kill scheme" was in place to insulate any bad press against then-candidate Trump.

Senior White House aide Hope Hicks confirmed Trump wanted to make bad stories go away to secure an election win to accountants verifying Trump's involvement in the signing of hush money checks.

Cohen himself testified under oath Trump knew and was aware of the scheme to manipulate the election. But he also put his credibility on the line by admitting of stealing from the Trump Organization.

On Tuesday, both the defense and prosecution have been making their last pitch to the jury in closing arguments before sending them to deliberations where they will decide Trump's fate.

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