NEW YORK (AP) — Jury deliberations in Donald Trump‘s criminal hush money trial entered their second day on Thursday after the panel began the weighty task a day before.
Deliberations concluded Wednesday with the panel asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to rehear portions of crucial testimony from two key witnesses: former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer. Jurors also requested to rehear jury instructions.
The jury deliberated for about 4 1/2 hours on Wednesday.
Deliberations in the hush money case will go on for as long as the jury needs. While the standard court day runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a break for lunch, Merchan told the panel it could work as late as 6 p.m. if it wished.
At the heart of the charges are reimbursements paid to Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in exchange for not going public with her claim about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
Prosecutors say the reimbursements were falsely logged as “legal expenses” to hide the true nature of the transactions.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges which are punishable by up to four years in prison. He has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
The case is the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial and is the first-ever criminal case against a former U.S. president.
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IN A COURTROOM DEVOID OF JUDGE AND JURY, REPORTERS WAIT FOR NEWS
As deliberations wear on in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, it’s a bit of the old adage “hurry up and wait” at the New York courthouse.
With the jury working in secret in a separate room, and Trump and his team holed up elsewhere in the building, reporters remain in the courtroom waiting for word — or rather the sound — of a new development.
Each time the jury has a question — and eventually, if it reaches a verdict — it must send a note to the judge. The way it signals that it has a note is by ringing a bell that blares in the courtroom. The sound is akin to that of an old telephone or alarm clock.
So far Thursday, the bell hasn’t rung at all. It tolled twice within an hour on Wednesday signaling notes from the jury to have certain testimony read to them along with a portion of the jury instructions.
That’s made for a somewhat surreal scene in the normally bustling Manhattan courtroom. The front of the room where the action happens is empty, save for a few court officers and staff: no judge, no prosecutors, no defense team, no former president, and certainly no jurors.
The room that reverberated with dramatic testimony and tense arguments over the last six weeks is now eerily quiet, save for the clicks of laptop keys and the din of chatter amongst reporters and members of the public sitting, watching and waiting for the bell to ring.
NORTH DAKOTA’S BURGUM SEEN OUTSIDE OF MANHATTAN COURTROOM
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, seen as one of the potential running mates for Donald Trump, was outside the courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday doing television interviews.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is being tried on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Burgum was among the Republican officials who accompanied Trump to court in recent weeks as a show of support, but he was not seen inside court with him Thursday.
Also seen outside the courthouse was Trump senior campaign advisor Jason Miller. He said Trump is “doing great” when asked how the former president was doing while waiting for the jury to deliberate. Miller is among the aides who accompanied Trump on Thursday.
The former president is accused of falsifying internal Trump Organization records as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign, particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.
The courtroom has closed for lunch. Proceedings resume at 2:15 p.m.
