TRUMP JURY INSTRUCTIONS EXPLAINED: How Trump Hush Money Trial Jury Will Determine Guilt Or Acquittal

4 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," Forbes Senior Editor Dan Alexander breaks down the charges and jury instructions in former President Trump's NYC hush money trial, which he has covered for months.

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Transcript

00:00 Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes Breaking News. Joining me now is my colleague,

00:07 Forbes Senior Editor Dan Alexander. Dan, thanks for joining me.

00:11 Sure thing. Thank you for having me.

00:14 Big day in New York today. The jury began deliberations in Donald Trump's hush money

00:19 trial. When you think about the trial, think about where we are right now. What sticks

00:25 out to you and what do our viewers need to know?

00:27 Well, look, this is just a historic moment. You have somebody who is a former president

00:34 and potentially the next president who is confined right now to the courthouse waiting

00:39 to hear his decision. We don't know when that's going to come in. It could be in the next

00:44 five minutes. It could be five days from now. It could be a couple of weeks from now. And

00:48 so Donald Trump really doesn't have much control over the situation. He's just sitting there

00:54 waiting as the rest of us are to see what ultimately what the fallout is.

01:00 Is there any indication of what the fallout is? Can you walk us through the potential

01:05 outcomes here?

01:07 Well, one option is that he could be convicted on all counts. If that happens, then the jury's

01:14 decision would then go to the judge who would then impose a sentence. He could also be convicted

01:19 on some of the counts and acquitted on other counts. It's worth understanding that these

01:26 are all based on different types of business documents. Some of them Donald Trump signed,

01:31 some of them he didn't. So that's a possibility that they could say, "Hey, he's guilty on

01:36 falsified business records for these ones, but not these ones." He also could be acquitted

01:40 wholesale. And in that case, he would obviously claim victory as he makes sense. But regardless

01:48 of the outcome here, there's one thing that we already know, and that's that there's going

01:52 to be a ton of controversy. If it goes Trump's way, he's going to say that this was all rigged

02:00 up and the verdict only proves it. If it goes against him, he's going to say that this is

02:04 a continuation of witch hunts that he's been dealing with for years. And his supporters

02:10 and his antagonists are going to react to this decision very strongly, whatever it is.

02:16 And so we're really at a tense moment here for the country as we wait to see what the

02:22 verdict is.

02:24 It was really tense this morning already, just when the jury instructions were given.

02:29 It's set Twitter ablaze, or now X rather. And I want to talk about these, and if you

02:34 could explain them for us. The jury needs to be unanimous in finding Trump falsified

02:38 business records and knowingly falsified them for another crime. But the jury doesn't need

02:44 to have a consensus on what that other crime is. Can you explain and elaborate this a little

02:49 further?

02:50 Sure. So the facts of this case are relatively simple, but what's not simple is the legal

02:57 theory behind the case. And the key thing to understand is that falsifying business

03:02 records is typically a misdemeanor crime. However, if it's in furtherance of another

03:09 crime, then that can elevate to a felony. Now, in this case, the Manhattan District

03:14 Attorney has charged these 34 counts as felonies, meaning that they were in service of another

03:19 crime. So in order to do that, you have to connect them to another crime. Now, there

03:25 are different ways that you could do this. So one of the theories is that each individual

03:31 falsified record is sort of furthering the next one. So you have one crime, that's then

03:37 the second count, then the second count. So those all pile up on each other. And therefore,

03:42 that's how you elevate this from a misdemeanor to a felony.

03:46 Another theory is that you can say, okay, well, these are all violations of a state

03:51 election law, which prevents people from unlawfully aiding a campaign. Now, in that theory, these

03:59 business records, falsified business records would be essentially a cover-up to maintain

04:06 the secret from the voting public that Donald Trump had paid off this porn star who alleged

04:12 that she had sex with him. And so those two theories are different possibilities.

04:18 And what the judge said in his instructions today is that basically the jury doesn't have

04:25 to agree on which of the theories add up to the felony. So certain parts of the jury can

04:33 believe that you take the one misdemeanor and another misdemeanor and another misdemeanor

04:38 and that adds up to a felony. And others can connect it with the election law and say that

04:43 that's what makes it a felony. But if they all agree that they can be elevated, even

04:48 if they don't agree by the means through which they can be elevated, then you can still convict

04:52 them of felonies.

04:54 Donald Trump obviously had a lot to say about this case as a whole, and he said this today,

05:01 quote, Mother Teresa could not be these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole thing

05:05 is rigged. Is there any indication from these comments that the Trump team is already teeing

05:10 up for a guilty verdict?

05:12 Well, look, Donald Trump has a long history of sort of planning for if things don't go

05:18 his way. You see this with elections. You know, he very famously was asked whether he

05:24 support the results of previous elections. Well, we'll see. We'll see what happens. And

05:28 then ultimately, when he lost the 2020 election, he claimed that he had won. So he's sort of,

05:34 you know, getting ahead of that here, where if he is convicted, he's going to be able

05:39 to say, see, I've been saying this whole time, this is all rigged. Now, if he is acquitted,

05:44 then I suppose he would say, hey, I guess I'm more holy than Mother Teresa or whatever.

05:49 It's sort of either way it plays in his favor.

05:53 And let's say he is convicted. Is there potential prison time or what's the likelihood of

05:58 a former president serving jail time here?

06:01 It is a possibility. So each of these counts, if they're convicted as felonies, carries

06:08 up to four years in jail, but they would likely be done concurrently. So it wouldn't be all

06:14 34 counts times four, which would put him in prison for life. That's a practical impossibility.

06:21 So the maximum amount of time that he could go to jail would be for four years. Now, he

06:25 could also be just sentenced to probation. And so that ultimately will be a decision

06:30 that the judge will make, not the jury. The jury's decision is to decide whether or not

06:35 he is guilty of the crime. And then the judge decides, OK, once he's guilty of the crime,

06:40 if the jury comes to that determination, here's what the appropriate punishment should be.

06:46 And does a conviction judge potential jail time? Does that put his campaign in jeopardy?

06:51 Because as you know, we're about six months away from Election Day.

06:55 Yeah, I mean, it certainly does. You know, he's going to have an appeal. There's no question

07:01 about that. If he were to lose, he would definitely appeal and the appeal would likely take a

07:05 long amount of time and so probably would not be done by the time of the election. So

07:11 he's going to be able to continue campaigning. He's already made the courthouse in the courtroom

07:15 for one of his most frequently visited campaign stops. And you can expect that if he has to

07:23 continue to return to court for any reason, that he'll use it to make a political show

07:28 of it. So I don't think you won't expect to see him get off the trail, nor will he likely

07:34 be sitting in jail on the time that the election is held.

07:38 He's been facing a mountain of legal challenges since he announced he was running for election

07:43 for president in 2024. Do you see this impacting voters' opinions of him at all?

07:51 I think that a lot of people already have their mind made up about Donald Trump. But

07:56 you know, there are different moments in legal proceedings that people take more seriously

08:03 than others. So, OK, let's say that you are accused of a crime by a media organization.

08:10 A lot of people are going to say, "Oh, well, that's just noise." Now, suddenly, if that

08:14 becomes an indictment, then wait a second, this is more serious. Once the charges are

08:19 brought, if you're actually convicted, then people will take it even more seriously than

08:24 that. So I do think that there are these moments when people say, especially when there's a

08:28 question of credibility and who to believe, and of course, everybody has something to

08:32 say about this case, where there's sort of a more neutral arbiter, in this case, it's

08:38 the jury, saying, you know, this is the decision, whether he is not guilty or guilty. And so

08:44 I think that that will sway people's minds in some ways, but ultimately how that affects

08:49 his chances at election are hard to say. But remember, this is going to be a close election,

08:57 almost regardless of what happens between now and then. And so swaying something by

09:02 half of a percentage point could be the difference of who becomes the next president.

09:06 Dan, I feel really lucky talking to you right now. I don't know any other reporter that

09:11 has covered Donald Trump, his finances, his legal challenges, more intimately than you.

09:18 So from that lens, what do you think is missing from the national conversation here?

09:23 Well, you know, I think that the big thing is that this is just one of his major legal

09:29 challenges that he's facing right now. And of course, he also has challenges beyond his

09:34 legal ones, you know, his real financial challenges right now. And when you take all of those

09:39 things and add them all up and you say, okay, this is a guy who is facing right now his

09:44 first of potentially four criminal trials, you get a really, really sort of dark, gloomy

09:53 picture of the man. And it's easy when you get into the news cycle to sort of laser in

10:01 on what's going on at the moment, whether it's this trial or whether it's the previous

10:05 civil fraud trial. And certainly, you know, we're not going to have the other trials before

10:12 the election. But if those were to be held down the line, you know, you zoom in on that

10:17 moment. But I do think that a lot of times in zooming in, people fail to kind of step

10:23 back and say, here's the overall picture. And it's really, I mean, it's a remarkable

10:28 story, one that we haven't seen before in US history, not just, you know, one indictment,

10:34 but four and somebody coming back and trying to make and making a really legitimate run

10:40 at the presidency again. Meanwhile, he's got this complicated, you know, business with,

10:45 you know, fraud allegations and, you know, penalties of hundreds of millions of dollars.

10:50 Any one of these threads would be a history making thing. And yet you have it all colliding

10:56 at once. It's really fascinating.

10:59 That's really interesting, because when you do step back and you look at this as a whole,

11:04 the characters of Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, they've been trailing Trump really

11:09 for years now. So when you think about all of these problems that he faces, these legal

11:14 challenges, financial troubles and other, is this the one that could hurt him the most,

11:20 do you think?

11:23 This particular trial?

11:24 Yes.

11:26 Well, just given the timing, the fact that it's likely going to be the only criminal

11:30 trial that happens before the election, I think that you could make that argument. Now,

11:35 it depends on what you're measuring the damage by, you know, I mean, the civil fraud trial

11:41 where he's facing, you know, penalties of hundreds of millions of dollars will undoubtedly

11:46 have a lasting effect on his business. You know, that's something that, you know, if

11:52 you go to jail for a couple of months, OK, that's, you know, a big blow to the ego and

11:55 it damages your reputation. But, you know, at the end of that time, you get out and you

12:00 can go on, you know, living your life with all of the same luxuries, essentially, that

12:04 you had before. If, however, you have hundreds of millions of dollars stripped from you,

12:08 that's a real tangible thing that's hard to get back. If you lose the election and then

12:13 you are facing, you know, additional criminal trials with potentially greater penalties,

12:19 then you could point to those and say, really, those are the most serious. So I think that

12:24 for different reasons, each one of these legal trials, each one of these trials could, in

12:31 hindsight, be viewed as the most significant. And we won't know which of these are going

12:37 to have the biggest impact until probably a couple of years from now.

12:42 Obviously, everyone's waiting with bated breath for the verdict. But between now and whenever

12:47 that is, what are you keeping your eye out on?

12:50 Well, of course, like everybody else, we'll be waiting to see what happens in the courthouse.

12:55 You know, what are the notes that are being passed back and forth? Of course, Trump is

13:00 likely to be sounding off on his own accord on, you know, Truth Social. And so that's

13:05 going to be interesting to watch. But, you know, it's one of the interesting things about

13:09 this trial and really all trials is that you have so much information coming for during

13:16 all of the witnesses and opening statements and the closing statements. It's like a fire

13:19 hose of information. And then it just all stops. And you know that you're at the most

13:25 important moment, but the flow of information is virtually nothing.

13:31 And so at this point, all you can really do is just sit back and wait to see what happens.

13:36 There's not, you know, you're trying to read the tea leaves through, you know, little bits

13:40 here and there, but we're done seeing most of the information until the jury comes back

13:46 in with a verdict.

13:47 Dan, per usual, I really appreciate your insight today. Thank you for joining me.

13:52 Sure thing. Thank you for having me.

13:54 Thank you.

13:55 Thank you.

13:55 [END]

TRUMP JURY INSTRUCTIONS EXPLAINED: How Trump Hush Money Trial Jury Will Determine Guilt Or Acquittal

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