New York jurors filed back into the Manhattan criminal courthouse for a second day of deliberations in the case of Stormy Daniels

The New York jurors in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial filed back into the Manhattan criminal courthouse this morning for a second day of deliberations.

The jurors were returned to the courtroom at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday to review several requests they had made during their first five hours of deliberations the day before. They asked for portions of testimony to be returned to them.

The jurors heard testimony from 22 people in the criminal court in Manhattan. Other evidence included phone records, invoices and checks that Michael Cohen, a “fixer” for Donald Trump, made to Daniels to keep her quiet about the alleged affair with the president.

It is the first of many different federal and state cases that Trump is currently facing as he tries to regain his seat at the White House. The Trump Organization paid Michael Cohen to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from talking about her relationship with Trump, according to prosecutors. Witnesses at the trial included Daniels and Cohen as well as David Pecker, the former publisher of the tabloid the National Enquirer, who helped broker the deal with Daniels.

The jurors also asked for New York Judge Juan Merchan to read back a portion of the jury instructions that described how they should consider certain testimony, laws around liability, definitions of intent and New York tax law.

Jamelle Bouie is not a lawyer. He was convicted in a Manhattan jury on the charges of bribery, falsification and election interference

The prosecutors said that Trump lied in his records in order to cover a crime. The instructions say the other crime doesn’t need to be proven and can be tax or campaign finance violations.

Jamelle Bouie I am no lawyer and did not follow every in and out of the trial, but if there was a single thing that doomed Donald Trump — or at least, if there was a single thing that harmed his effort to escape a guilty verdict — it was his total contempt for the process and the proceedings. It is hard to imagine that he was helped, in any way, by his constant attacks on judge, jury and the trial itself. The jury is only told to evaluate the evidence before it, so it is asking a lot of everyone to ignore the fact that the other person has turned you into an enemy.

A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on all counts in a case accusing him of falsifying business records to conceal payments he made to suppress unflattering stories about him.

The real verdict will be by the people on November 5, according to Trump. “We didn’t do a thing wrong. I am not a very good man. He also blamed the Biden administration for the trial, even though the charges were not brought by the federal government, but rather the Manhattan district attorney’s office — an independent local enforcer. The X account for Trump’s presidential campaign posted an image Thursday evening, showing him with his fist raised and the words “NEVER SURRENDER,” along with a link to his campaign site.

Reporters in the courtroom from outlets such as CNN and The New York Times noted that Trump’s demeanor quickly changed from lighthearted to more serious when he learned a verdict had been reached.

The former president’s future legal battles include challenges over his retention of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom and his alleged election interference through a phone call to a Georgia election official imploring them to “find” enough votes for him to win the state.

This likely is the only one of Trump’s four ongoing criminal cases that will be heard ahead of the 2024 election in November, since federal trials in Washington, D.C., and Florida, and a state case in Georgia are in various stages of delays.

The defense presented just two witnesses, including Robert Costello, an attorney who wanted to represent Cohen after Cohen’s home and office were searched by the FBI in 2018. Costello had been put on the stand to refute Cohen’s claim that Costello was pressuring Cohen to stay on Trump’s “team.” Even though Trump was deciding which Cohen’s lawyers he wanted to pay, Costello was concerned that the appearance would be that he was following instructions from Giuliani or the president.

Cohen said he and Weisselberg met and discussed the agreement with Trump shortly before he left for Washington, on or about Jan. 17, 2020. At the end of the meeting, Cohen said that Trump approved the deal and that it was going to be an amazing ride in Washington. Cohen and Trump had a discussion about the arrangement in the Oval Office in February. Photos and White House records corroborated that the two met in the Oval Office at the time.

The payments would be described as pursuant to a “legal retainer.” Weisselberg is currently serving jail time for perjury in Trump’s civil fraud trial.

As October drew to a close, Cohen testified, he frantically opened bank accounts and tried to come up with a way to pay the $130,000 to keep Daniels quiet. The idea that if Daniels was paid, there wouldn’t be a difference was proposed by Trump, Cohen said.

Still, the heart of the case rested on the testimony of what happened after the election, when the records were falsified, in particular the handwritten notes and documents from the Trump Organization’s former comptroller, Jeff McConney.

A lot of the other witnesses agreed that Trump was making a payment to influence the election by keeping women voters on board. By the time she was at the White House, Trump told her that the story would come out in less time than in years past.

She testified that Trump had dangled a possible role on his TV show Celebrity Apprentice. This detail — that the sex wasn’t entirely wanted — caused the defense to request a mistrial, which was denied. It also provided a motive for Trump to suppress the story. Prosecutors said Trump was aware of what happened in that hotel room and not want it to come out. The testimony of the adult film actor included intimate details of her alleged sexual encounter, but Judge marco agreed with the defense that were not necessary.

According to the next day’s reports, Daniels threatened to go public with accusations that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite during a celebrity golf tournament.

The campaign was destroyed by the release of the Access Hollywood tape, where Trump could be heard boasting that he was able to do it because he was famous. You have the ability to do anything. Don’t take them by the p**s.

According to testimony from the two men, in August of 2015, the publisher of the National Enquirer met with Donald Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen at Trump Tower.

It was agreed at the meeting that he would be the eyes and ears of the Trump campaign. His job was to look out for negative stories from women he could “take off the marketplace,” by buying up the rights but never publishing them.

The Donald Trump Trial reads to the Times Opposition: The Moments and Dynamics of the Trial, and How it Might Affect the Presidential Election

It was more than a year since a grand jury indicted Trump, making him the first former or current president to face criminal charges.

The indictment was dismissed as overreach by the Democratic District Attorney, who brought it. Trump has made it clear he thinks that the case is interfering with his campaign.

The verdict in the trial of Donald Trump was read to us by Opinion. The special feature by the Times Opinion writers is dedicated to this development in American political history, on the moments and dynamics that mattered the most in the trial, and how it might affect the presidential election.