Trump trial opening statements offer jury both sides

• By Phil McCausland
• BBC News, New York

Prosecutors painted Donald Trump as directing a pre-election cover-up while his defense countered that he was merely trying to win a race for the presidency, calling it “democracy”.

On Monday, Manhattan prosecutors and Mr. Trump’s legal team laid out dueling visions of the hush-money case.

Prosecutors claimed he was at the center of an alleged scheme involving false business records, payouts and influencing the 2016 election.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyer kept it simple.

The former president, Todd Blanche said, is “cloaked in innocence”.

The first witness – former tabloid publisher David Pecker – also took the stand but that testimony was ultimately brief and only covered certain aspects of Mr Pecker’s editorial responsibilities at American Media Inc, which owns the National Enquirer.

That tabloid was allegedly involved in a “catch-and-kill” scheme to purchase stories that portrayed Mr. Trump in a bad light, then ensure they were never published.

Mr Pecker’s testimony was interrupted as court ended at 12:30 local time (17:30 BST) due to the Passover holiday.

But it was the 45 minutes spent by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office outlining its case – and Mr Blanche’s 25 minutes at the microphone – that offered the most details yet about each side’s case for the 12 jury members.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo alleged that Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former lawyer and confidant, worked with the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to “cook the books” at Mr Trump’s direction to hide hush-money payments central to the case.

Those payments were allegedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, by Mr Cohen over her claim that she had a sexual encounter with the former president. Mr. Trump then reimbursed his former lawyer, although he is accused of disguising the payments.

Prosecutors alleged that the scheme to pay off Ms Daniels involved falsifying three forms of records – invoices, ledger entries and checks.

Mr. Trump said in his business records that those payments were “for legal services pursuant to a retainer agreement” with Mr. Cohen, Mr. Colangelo told the jury.

“Those were lies,” the prosecutor said.

Most importantly, however, they claimed Mr Trump was motivated to provide the payoff so voters did not learn of the alleged encounter with Ms Daniels.

Prosecutors said that this cover-up should be considered election interference, and constituted the second crime, making the charge of falsifying business records a felony, instead of a misdemeanor.

One piece of evidence they emphasized is the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Mr. Trump bragged to television host Billy Bush about trying to have sex with a married woman.

Prosecutors were permitted by the judge to add a transcript of the video to evidence, but not the video itself. The key point for the district attorney’s office is that it shows how the Trump political campaign panicked in 2016 when the Washington Post first reported on the tape’s existence.

“The defendant and his campaign staff were deeply concerned that it would irreparably damage his standing with female voters in particular,” Mr. Colangelo told the court.

Mr Colangelo alleged that a day later, Ms Daniels came forward alleging a sexual encounter with Mr Trump; Mr. Pecker then contacted Michael Cohen to discuss how to keep it quiet.

Similar to the Access Hollywood tape, the public disclosure that Trump had a sexual encounter with an adult film star “would have been devastating to his campaign, so at Trump’s direction Cohen negotiated a deal”, Mr Colangelo told the jurors.

The defense’s rebuttal was fairly simple in comparison, although it was interrupted a few times by objections from prosecutors.

Mr Blanche appeared intent on casting prosecutors’ star witness – Mr Cohen – as an untrustworthy former employee with an ax to grind against the former president.

“He’s a convicted felon and a convicted perjurer – he’s an admitted liar,” Mr Blanche said of Mr Cohen.

He also zeroed in on Ms Daniels, who he said had earned “hundreds of thousands” of dollars with her claims. The defense lawyer told the jury to discount her as a witness.

He went on to dismiss the examples of allegedly false records as “34 pieces of paper” that did not involve his client.

As for the case prosecutors made for election interference, Mr Blanche denied that his client had done anything illegal even if he had attempted to sway voters.

“There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” Mr Blanche said. “It’s called democracy.”