What we've learned so far in the Trump hush money trial and what to watch for as it wraps up
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Testimony in the hush money trial of Donald Trump is set to conclude in the coming days, putting the landmark case on track for jury deliberations that will determine whether it ends in a mistrial, an acquittal — or the first-ever felony conviction of a former American president.
Testimony in the hush money trial of Donald Trump is set to conclude in the coming days, putting the landmark case on track for jury deliberations that will determine whether it ends in a mistrial, an acquittal — or the first-ever felony conviction of a former American president.
Jurors over the course of a month have heard testimony about sex and bookkeeping, tabloid journalism and presidential politics. Their task ahead will be to decide whether prosecutors who have charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records have proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Here's a look at what the two sides have argued, who has been missing from the case, what to listen for in the final days and what prosecutors will have to prove to secure a conviction.
Through witnesses including a porn actor, a veteran tabloid publisher and longtime Trump aides, the prosecution aimed to link the presumptive Republican nominee for the White House this year to a hush money scheme during the 2016 presidential campaign that resulted in the filing of phony business records to mask the alleged conspiracy.
Jurors heard testimony that two women and a doorman were paid tens of thousands of dollars to keep quiet during that campaign about stories that, had they emerged, could have embarrassed Trump. Jurors heard claims of sex, saw copies of texts, emails and checks and listened to a secret recording in which Trump and his then-lawyer can be heard discussing a plan to buy the silence of a Playboy model.
One witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and a longtime Trump friend, testified that he had agreed to be the “eyes and ears" of the Trump campaign by alerting it to any negative stories about him.
Actor Stormy Daniels told jurors, in occasionally graphic terms, about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006; he denies the whole thing. She described being offered US$130,000 by Trump's then-lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, to remain silent after she said she was looking for ways to sell the story and get it out there.
Both parties on Capitol Hill remain unmoved in their fight over U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, threatening to drag out the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shutdown for days – if not weeks – more.
Closing arguments are set to kick off Tuesday in a trial pitting Elon Musk against Twitter shareholders who say the world’s richest man engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his US$44-billion deal to buy the social media platform in 2022.
A Utah woman who wrote a children’s book about coping with grief after her husband’s death was convicted of aggravated murder in his death by poisoning him with fentanyl.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Democratic rival and possible 2028 presidential candidate Gavin Newsom. But lately, he’s become fixated on saying the California governor cannot be president due to his “learning disability.”
More than 10,000 U.S. flights were delayed or cancelled Monday amid a series of storms affecting several major airports along the East Coast and some other locales.
The man who attacked a Michigan synagogue was the brother of a Hezbollah commander killed earlier this month in an Israeli airstrike, Israel’s military claimed Sunday.
Taiwan saw a surge of Chinese military planes near the island, its defence ministry said Sunday, after a sharp drop in flights over the past two weeks had sparked discussions among observers.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his teenage daughter, observed a live-fire test of multiple rocket launch systems, state media reported Sunday, a likely response to ongoing U.S.-South Korean military training that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.
North Korea on Saturday fired about 10 ballistic missiles toward the eastern sea, South Korea’s military said, staging its own show of force as the rival South conducts a joint military exercise with the United States.
A Georgia prosecutor has dropped the charges against a teenager who police say was driving the truck that struck and killed a beloved high school teacher when a prank turned deadly, the teen’s lawyer said. The victim’s family had asked authorities to drop the charges.
Investigators worked Friday to determine the exact reason a man with a rifle crashed into a large Michigan synagogue in what federal officials are saying was an attack carried out by a 41-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon.
Warsaw’s city council on Thursday voted almost unanimously to ban night-time alcohol sales in the capital of Poland, which ranks among the EU countries with the highest drinking-related mortality rates.
China adopted a sweeping law Thursday to promote what it calls “ethnic unity,” a measure that critics say would further erode the rights of some minority groups as authorities cement a push toward assimilation.