In court on Tuesday, Cohen said Trump approved the plan to reimburse him the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels.
To convict Donald Trump in his ongoing Stormy Daniels hush money trial, the jury must believe „three simple words“ given in testimony on Tuesday by Michael Cohen, the Republican firebrand’s former fixer, said a former federal prosecutor.
Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, was referring to a statement from Cohen who said Trump had authorized a plan to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, a former pornographic actress, ahead of the 2016 presidential election, then conceal this by falsely saying the funds were for legal expenses.
„Judges instruct juries on the law they must apply to the facts to decide a case. Often, judges explain that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the kind of proof you would need to act on one of the most serious issues in your own life,“ Vance wrote on her Substack blog on Wednesday. „It is not proof beyond any speculative doubt, but it is still a very high burden. Here, the jury has to believe Michael Cohen’s three simple words—’He approved it’—in order to convict.“
„Imagine that you are a juror in the trial of Donald Trump,“ she added. „In order to convict, you have to believe that he was a part of the scheme to falsify corporate records. There’s a good bit of circumstantial evidence of that, and then there’s Michael Cohen, whose testimony places Trump squarely in the thick of things, directing Cohen’s actions.
