Jurors in Trump's Hush Money Trial Zero in on Testimony of Key Witnesses as Deliberations Resume

After huddling with his lawyers, Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump walks out of the courtroom to make remarks to the media, as the 12 jurors begin deliberating at his criminal trial at the New York State Supreme Court in New York, New York, Wednesday, May, 29, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS
After huddling with his lawyers, Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump walks out of the courtroom to make remarks to the media, as the 12 jurors begin deliberating at his criminal trial at the New York State Supreme Court in New York, New York, Wednesday, May, 29, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS
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Jurors in Trump's Hush Money Trial Zero in on Testimony of Key Witnesses as Deliberations Resume

After huddling with his lawyers, Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump walks out of the courtroom to make remarks to the media, as the 12 jurors begin deliberating at his criminal trial at the New York State Supreme Court in New York, New York, Wednesday, May, 29, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS
After huddling with his lawyers, Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump walks out of the courtroom to make remarks to the media, as the 12 jurors begin deliberating at his criminal trial at the New York State Supreme Court in New York, New York, Wednesday, May, 29, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial is to resume deliberations Thursday after asking to rehear potentially crucial testimony about the alleged hush money scheme at the heart of the history-making case.
The 12-person jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours on Wednesday without reaching a verdict, said The Associated Press.
Besides asking to rehear testimony from a tabloid publisher and Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer, the jury also requested to revisit at least part of the judge's hourlong instructions that were meant to guide them on the law.
It's unclear how long the deliberations will last. A guilty verdict would deliver a stunning legal reckoning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to reclaim the White House while an acquittal would represent a major win for Trump and embolden him on the campaign trail. Since verdicts must be unanimous, it's also possible the case ends in a mistrial if the jury can't reach a consensus after days of deliberations.
Trump struck a pessimistic tone after leaving the courtroom following the reading of jury instructions, repeating his assertions of a “very unfair trial” and saying: “Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we'll see. We'll see how we do."
He remained inside the courthouse during deliberations, where he posted on his social media network complaints about the trial and quoted legal and political commentators who view the case in his favor. He did not testify in his own defense, a fact the judge told jurors they could not take into account.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.
The charge, a felony, arises from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006. Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and contends the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services. He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.
To convict Trump, the jury would have to find unanimously that he created a fraudulent entry in his company’s records, or caused someone else to do so, and that he did so with the intent of committing or concealing another crime.
The crime prosecutors say Trump committed or hid is a violation of a New York election law making it illegal for two or more conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”
While the jury must unanimously agree that something unlawful was done to promote Trump’s election campaign, they don’t have to be unanimous on what that unlawful thing was.
The jurors — a diverse cross-section of Manhattan residents and professional backgrounds — often appeared riveted by testimony in the trial, including from Cohen and Daniels. Many took notes and watched intently as witnesses answered questions from Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers.
Jurors started deliberating after a marathon day of closing arguments in which a prosecutor spoke for more than five hours, underscoring the burden the district attorney's office faces in needing to establish Trump's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Trump team need not establish his innocence to avoid a conviction but must instead bank on at least one juror finding that prosecutors have not sufficiently proved their case.
In their first burst of communication with the court, jurors asked to rehear testimony from Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about an August 2015 meeting with Trump at Trump Tower where the tabloid boss agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of his fledgling presidential campaign.
Pecker testified that the plan included identifying potentially damaging stories about Trump so they could be squashed before being published. That, prosecutors say, was the beginning of the catch-and-kill scheme at the heart of the case.
Jurors also want to hear Pecker’s account of a phone call he said he received from Trump in which they discussed a rumor that another outlet had offered to buy former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged story that she had a yearlong affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. Trump has denied the affair.
Pecker testified that Trump told him, “Karen is a nice girl” and asked, “What do you think I should do?” Pecker said he replied: “I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.” He added that Trump told him he doesn’t buy stories because they always get out and that Cohen would be in touch.
The publisher said he came away from the conversation thinking Trump was aware of the specifics of McDougal’s claims. Pecker said he believed the story was true and would have been embarrassing to Trump and his campaign if it were made public.
The National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., eventually paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story in an agreement that also included writing and other opportunities with its fitness magazine and other publications.
The fourth item jurors requested is Pecker’s testimony about his decision in October 2016 to back out of an agreement to sell the rights to McDougal’s story to Trump through a company Cohen had established for the transaction, known as an “assignment of rights.”
“I called Michael Cohen, and I said to him that the agreement, the assignment deal is off. I am not going forward. It is a bad idea, and I want you to rip up the agreement,” Pecker testified. “He was very, very, angry. Very upset. Screaming, basically, at me.”
Pecker testified that he reiterated to Cohen that he wasn’t going forward with the agreement.
He said that Cohen told him: “The boss is going to be very angry at you.”



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."