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By Mandy Taheri
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Donald Trump faces a "mountain" of corroborating evidence in his criminal hush money trial, says legal analyst Glenn Kirschner.
In a Wednesday YouTube video, the former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent critic of the former president, said "jurors have to be persuaded that the evidence proves a defendant's guilt beyond the reasonable doubt if they are to vote guilty."
He followed up by claiming that "in this case, given the evidence, given the mountain of corroboration of for example Michael Cohen's testimony, Stormy Daniels' testimony, David Pecker's testimony..." the former president's "guilt" will be proven "beyond reasonable doubt."
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The high-profile court proceedings mark the first time in U.S. history that a former president has stood trial in a criminal case. Following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, Trump was indicted on in March 2023 for 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels by Trump's then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Daniels had alleged she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he has denied. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and said the case against him is politically motivated.
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Newsweek reached out via email to Kirschner and Trump's defense attorney Todd Blanche via email on Thursday.
The six-week-long case has heard from 17 other prosecution witnesses, as well as Daniels, Cohen and Pecker. The defense put two witnesses on the stand, and despite Trump having previously mentioned he would take the stand, he did not testify.
After closing arguments, which begin on Tuesday, the jury will begin deliberations, which could be as soon as Wednesday. In a criminal trial, a jury must find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, if not, the defendant is deemed not guilty.
Kirschner went on to list the "mountain" of corroborating evidence as witness testimonies, "business records, false ledger entries, reimbursement checks written by Donald Trump himself out of the Oval Office falsely, fraudulently, trying to make them look like you know payment for legal services."
He believes that all the evidence points to "Donald Trump repaying Michael Cohen as part of this dirty hush money scheme to gain unfair advantage in a presidential election."
"The evidence has proved, friends, beyond all doubt, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond all doubt that Donald Trump committed these crimes," Kirschner said.
Former U.S. attorney and law professor at University of Michigan, Barbara McQuade, told Newsweek in an email on Thursday, that "it is always difficult to predict what juries might do because they each come to court with their own experiences and worldviews, and because they had the advantage of seeing up close every moment of the trial."
"But the prosecution has certainly provided sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," she added.
Jonathan Turley, a frequent Fox commentator and professor at George Washington University Law School, disagrees with Kirschner's assessment. He told Newsweek in an email Thursday that "ideally, a trial should not be a legal Rorschach test where people come away with vastly different impressions of what was shown.
"Even liberal legal analysts on CNN and other outlets have expressed doubt over the evidence and the underlying legal theory."
He added that, "The government has not clearly stated the second crime that zapped this dead misdemeanor into life as multiplicitous felonies. It has not established core elements of the underlying crimes, including intent of Donald Trump to misrepresent payments to Michael Cohen. Instead, the entirety of the case rests on a serial perjurer," he said, in reference to Cohen, who is a disbarred lawyer who previously pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress.
The 12-member jury is scheduled to hear closing statements on Tuesday, marking the final time they will hear from the prosecution and defense before beginning deliberations.
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