Trump has the chance to testify at hush money trial - if he so chooses

[May 20, 2024]  By Jack Queen, Luc Cohen, Jody Godoy and Andy Sullivan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For weeks, Donald Trump has sat silently in a New York courtroom while former employees and associates have testified in his criminal hush money trial. On Monday, the former U.S. president might seize the chance to tell his side of the story.

It is unclear whether Trump will take the witness stand.

Though he said before the trial began that he planned to testify, his lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge last week that he was not sure whether he would do so. Trump himself declined to tell reporters whether he will testify or not.

The first former president to stand criminal trial has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Daniels had threatened to go public with her account of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter - a liaison Trump denies.

Outside the courtroom, Trump, 77, has blasted the trial as a politically motivated effort to hobble his attempt to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election.

Inside the chamber, Trump has sat at the defendant's table listening to Daniels tell her account of their time together in lurid detail. Other witnesses have discussed efforts to bury unflattering stories at a time Trump faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehavior.

Prosecutors said last week they expected to wrap up their presentation on Monday after remaining testimony from Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels.

At that point, Trump's legal team will get a chance to make a presentation of their own, though defense lawyers often skip that step when they believe prosecutors have failed to make their case.

Trump's lawyers said they did not think they would need much time to call witnesses of their own - unless Trump opted to testify.

"That's another decision that we need to think through," Blanche said on Thursday.

If he chooses to testify, Trump will have the opportunity to convince jurors that he was not responsible for the paperwork at the heart of the case, and rebut Daniels' detailed account of their meeting in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

He would not be restrained by a gag order that bars him in other settings from criticizing witnesses, jurors and relatives of the judge and prosecutors.

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan Criminal Court, amid his trial, May 16th, 2024, in New York City, U.S. Steven Hirsch/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

However, he would face cross-examination by prosecutors, who could try to expose inconsistencies in his story. Any lies told under oath could expose him to further criminal perjury charges.

Trump could risk tarnishing his credibility or alienating the jury if he goes off on confusing tangents or loses his temper on the stand, said George Grasso, a retired New York judge.

“If he were to slip into campaign mode, he could play into the archetype of Donald Trump as a person who can’t control himself, as a person who’s loose with the truth,” Grasso said. “He could tank his whole case with one outburst.”

Trump's last appeared as a witness in a civil business-fraud trial last year, delivering defiant and rambling testimony that aggravated Justice Arthur Engoron, who was overseeing the case. Engoron would go on to order him to pay $355 million in penalties after finding he fraudulently overstated his net worth to dupe lenders.

Defendants in white-collar criminal cases typically do not testify in their own defense, but Trump would not be the only one to do so. Cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes are among recent high-profile defendants to take the stand. Both were convicted of defrauding investors and are now serving time in prison.

The hush money trial is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Trump faces, but it is likely the only one to go to trial before the election. Trump faces charges in Washington and Georgia of trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and charges in Florida of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.

(Reporting by Jack Queen, Luc Cohen and Jody Godoy in New York; Writing by Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)

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