ANALYSIS: Experts Offer Predictions Ahead of Verdict in Trump’s Criminal Trial

As the federal government finishes making its case within the high-profile legal trial of Donald J. Trump, observers of the proceedings are sharply cut up on potential outcomes.

One authorized professional informed The Epoch Instances that from the start indicators have been current the seemingly verdict has little to do with the authorized points concerned and extra to do with prosecutors’ agenda.

Others cite the potential of a hung jury and even an acquittal.

“The probabilities of President Trump getting convicted are fairly good, I believe. That is such a politically charged state of affairs. There’s no precedent for it,” Harvey Kushner, chair of the legal justice division at Lengthy Island College, informed The Epoch Instances.

Mr. Kushner mentioned that actor Robert De Niro spoke at a Biden marketing campaign rally outdoors the courthouse—because the attorneys launched into their closing statements—mirrored the politicized nature of the proceedings.

He added the extent of anti-Trump sentiment amongst massive swaths of the media and leisure industries has largely formed public perceptions of the case.

Different authorized specialists dissented, although none of them questioned the diploma of politicization at work within the protection the trial has acquired within the nationwide media.

After weeks of testimony from witnesses—as different as former grownup actress Stormy Daniels, onetime White Home communications director Hope Hicks, former Oval Workplace operations director Madeleine Westerhout, former American Media Worldwide CEO David Pecker, and star authorities witness, erstwhile Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen—the protection and the prosecution set about summarizing their respective circumstances on the jury on Might 28.

Protection legal professional Todd Blanche dwelled closely on Mr. Cohen’s intensive and admitted document of getting lied beneath oath and on the impossibility, as Mr. Blanche noticed it, of accepting something the witness mentioned in testimony as a foundation for a extremely consequential authorized resolution.

Mr. Blanche went as far as to name Mr. Cohen “the human embodiment of affordable doubt, actually,“ and ”the best liar of all time.”

The closing statements of either side largely mirrored arguments that they had made throughout their direct and cross-examination of varied witnesses.

The testiness of Mr. Blanche’s preliminary alternate with Mr. Cohen on the stand on Might 14—wherein the protection lawyer requested the witness to substantiate that he had known as Mr. Blanche “a crying little [expletive]” on social media—was so extreme that Justice Juan Merchan, who has sustained quite a few authorities objections to questions all through the trial and by no means gotten alongside effectively with the protection, struck the query and known as a sidebar.

The Jury Pool

In Mr. Kushner’s view, the authorized arguments made within the courtroom and the testimony of the assorted witnesses might finally be of secondary significance in comparison with the jury composition.

Throughout voir dire, it emerged that many potential jurors relied upon information from the Washington Put up, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Instances, and different publications identified to take important stances towards President Trump.

Mr. Kushner mentioned that he had held out hope that the presence of two legal professionals on the jury would assist lend some nonpartisan perspective to its deliberations.

Nonetheless, he added this hope light as occasions throughout the trial laid naked the choose’s predisposition and the mainstream media stepped up their slanted protection of the case.

“There are a few legal professionals on the jury. One would hope that with their coaching, they might retain a few of what they discovered in regulation college and wouldn’t associate with a conviction.

“However then once more, a jury pool in New York just isn’t more likely to be favorable to President Trump,” Mr. Kushner mentioned, alluding to the truth that 84.5 % of Manhattan voters backed Joe Biden within the 2020 election.

“I educate a course on the media’s influence on the legal justice system, and we discuss how the media are editorializing. And it appears to worsen.

“I’d assume that he’s going to get convicted on a few counts,” he added.

Mr. Kushner mentioned that one of many tipping factors that led him to view the trial as politicized got here throughout protection witness Robert Costello’s testimony every week in the past when Justice Merchan blew up on the witness for not respecting decorum in his courtroom.

He ordered the court docket to be cleared and warned the protection that additional infractions would lead him to carry Mr. Costello in contempt and strike all his testimony.

“To start with, I assumed Costello did a foul job as a protection witness. However when the choose stopped and admonished him, I assumed that went off the rails when it comes to how a choose would act,” mentioned Mr. Kushner.

Different authorized specialists consider {that a} conviction is unlikely.

To carry President Trump accountable for a felony, merely for having misrepresented funds to Mr. Cohen as authorized bills, crosses the road into semantics and sophistry, and has no foundation in any authorized precedent, they argue.

Mark Graber, a professor at Francis King Carey College of Legislation in Maryland, doesn’t discover President Trump wholly innocent however nonetheless sees potential outcomes apart from a felony conviction.

“I believe a hung jury is at all times attainable in a high-stakes legal trial,” Mr. Graber informed The Epoch Instances.

John Feehery, a political strategist who as soon as labored as an aide to Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Sick.), mentioned that President Trump might but get off.

“I’d put acquittal at 60 %, conviction at 20 %, and a hung jury at 20 %. It’s such a weak case. I’d be shocked if he weren’t acquitted,” Mr. Feehery informed The Epoch Instances.

District Legal professional Bragg’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.