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May 28, 2024, 1:27 p.m. ET
Jonah E. Bromwich and Ben Protess
Prosecutors are up next. Here’s the latest.
The lead lawyer for Donald J. Trump told jurors in the closing argument of his criminal case that the charges hinge on a witness he called “the greatest liar of all time,” and urged them to reach a “very quick and easy not guilty verdict.” Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office will present their closing argument after the lunch break.
The lawyer, Todd Blanche, took aim at the credibility of the witness, Mr. Trump’s onetime fixer Michael D. Cohen, who made a $130,000 hush-money payment to a p*rn star on the eve of the 2016 election to silence her account of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump a decade earlier. Mr. Blanche added in a sprawling and sometimes disjointed closing argument that there was “not a shred of evidence” that Mr. Trump plotted to falsify business records in reimbursing Mr. Cohen for that deal.
Here’s what to know:
The charges: Mr. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Mr. Cohen testified that Mr. Trump had ordered him to “take care of” the p*rn star, Stormy Daniels, in the waning days of the 2016 campaign because he feared she would derail his candidacy if she went public. Prosecutors say Mr. Trump faked business records to conceal the repayment of Mr. Cohen by listing them as legal fees — an arrangement that Mr. Cohen testified was confirmed in an Oval Office meeting. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and also says he never had sex with Ms. Daniels. Here’s a refresher on the case.
The defense’s summation: As Mr. Blanche questioned the reliability of Mr. Cohen, he also emphasized that Mr. Trump was the “leader of the free world” and would have paid little attention to the documents at the heart of the case, which include checks bearing Mr. Trump’s signature. He also argued that the documents weren’t false because Mr. Cohen had in fact performed legal work for Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Blanche’s argument was at times perplexing. He sometimes called extra attention to elements of the prosecution’s case and repeatedly emphasized Mr. Cohen’s position as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer even as he was impugning his character. He also played down prosecutors’ contention that Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen and the longtime publisher of The National Enquirer had engaged in a criminal conspiracy to suppress negative stories about Mr. Trump in order to protect his candidacy.
“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy,” he said.
Prosecutors get the last word: Up after Mr. Blanche will be Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney’s office who is expected to highlight evidence — including testimony from other witnesses — that supports Mr. Cohen’s account.
Mr. Steinglass may also remind jurors of Ms. Daniels’s deeply discomfiting testimony about what she says was an uninvited sexual encounter as he seeks to convince jurors that Mr. Trump was desperate to silence her story in the days before the 2016 election.
Biden trolls Trump: During Mr. Blanche’s closing argument, President Biden’s campaign held a news conference outside the courthouse with the actor Robert De Niro and two former Capitol Police officers. It was the most direct reference Mr. Biden’s campaign has made to Mr. Trump’s legal troubles after mostly sticking to sly insinuations. Read about the news conference.
What happens next: The closing arguments could spill into Wednesday. After both sides have summarized their cases for the jury, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, will instruct jurors on the relevant law before they begin deliberations — which could take anywhere from a few hours to weeks. If convicted, Mr. Trump faces up to four years in prison.
May 28, 2024, 1:39 p.m. ET
Matthew Haag
Here’s what Donald Trump’s lawyer said in his closing argument.
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A defense lawyer for Donald J. Trump said Tuesday in the closing argument of his criminal hush-money trial that the former president was not only innocent, but also a victim of extortion by liars seeking his demise.
The person in fact at fault was Michael D. Cohen, his former fixer and a key witness for prosecutors in the first criminal case against a former American president, said Todd Blanche, the lawyer who delivered the closing argument.
During a sometimes meandering three-hour closing presentation, Mr. Blanche declared that Mr. Cohen lied directly to the jury and that Mr. Trump did not know about Mr. Cohen’s hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who said she had sex with the former president.
Mr. Blanche used sports metaphors and a rambling Top 10 list in an effort to convince the 12 jurors of Mr. Trump’s innocence, repeatedly taking aim at Mr. Cohen.
“He’s literally like the M.V.P. of liars,” Mr. Blanche told the jury.
Later, Mr. Blanche tried a different sports-inspired description: “Michael Cohen is the G.L.O.A.T.,” he said, short for the “greatest liar of all time.”
Mr. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records that stem from the $130,000 payment by Mr. Cohen to Ms. Daniels, who had been considering going public in the days before the 2016 election with her account of a sexual encounter a decade before.
Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Trump falsified records when he repaid Mr. Cohen in 2017 for that deal, deliberately mislabeling reimbursem*nts as “legal expenses” to conceal their true purpose. The financial documents were processed by the Trump Organization, the former president’s family business.
Mr. Blanche told jurors Tuesday that the prosecution had not met its burden of proof, adding that the evidence “should leave you wanting more.” He reminded the jury that only Mr. Cohen had testified that Mr. Trump knew everything about the hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels.
“You cannot convict President Trump on any crime beyond a reasonable doubt on the words of Michael Cohen,” Mr. Blanche said.
Mr. Blanche said that Mr. Cohen had an ax to grind because he did not appreciate what Mr. Trump “did and did not do for him” after taking office.
Mr. Blanche said that there was “not a shred of evidence” that Mr. Trump had plotted to falsify records related to reimbursing Mr. Cohen. He also said that Mr. Cohen had a legitimate legal retainer with Mr. Trump as his personal lawyer. The records were not false, Mr. Blanche claimed, because of an oral retainer agreement. Prosecutors have said that no such agreement existed.
Several times, Mr. Blanche said that Mr. Trump did not have sex with Ms. Daniels.
He wrapped up the closing argument by listing 10 reasons that jurors should have reasonable doubt about Mr. Trump’s guilt. The final reason was Mr. Cohen, whom he called “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.”
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May 28, 2024, 1:01 p.m. ET
Michael Gold
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The scene outside the courthouse has felt more energetic today. After largely ignoring the trial, the Biden campaign held a news conference outside with the actor Robert DeNiro and two former Capitol Police officers, who have attacked Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump campaign officials stood by, then immediately gave a rebuttal. And all of that seems to have fired up demonstrators.
May 28, 2024, 1:01 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
We are taking a lunch break, and we’ll hear the prosecution’s closing argument when we return.
May 28, 2024, 12:55 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Justice Merchan is now excoriating Todd Blanche for making an “outrageous” statement. Merchan is clearly furious, and reminds Blanche, and not for the first time, that he was a prosecutor for long enough to know that it was out of bounds.
May 28, 2024, 12:56 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
“Making a comment like that is highly inappropriate,” the judge said. “It is simply not allowed, period. It’s hard for me to imagine how that was accidental.”
May 28, 2024, 12:53 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Before he concluded, Todd Blanche asked that the jurors not send his client to prison. Now, with the jury excused, Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor who will give his side’s closing argument, stands up and objects, describing Blanche's comment as “a blatant and wholly inappropriate effort” to attract sympathy for Trump. He asks for a curative instruction — he wants the judge to alert the jury to the issue, and remind them of their role.
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May 28, 2024, 12:50 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche concludes, again thanking the jurors. He tells them that if they pay close attention to the evidence they heard in the courtroom, “this is a very quick and easy not guilty verdict.” With that, the defense’s closing argument is over.
May 28, 2024, 12:49 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche reminds the jury that their deliberations should not involve their views of Trump, and that this is not a referendum on the ballot box and who they plan on voting for.
May 28, 2024, 12:49 p.m. ET
Michael Gold
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Trump and his campaign, meanwhile, have argued for much of the last year that this entire trial is a politically motivated sham that is exactly about the ballot box.
May 28, 2024, 12:48 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche introduces the acronym G.O.A.T., commonly used to stand for “greatest of all time.” He then applies the acronym to Michael Cohen. “Michael Cohen is the G.L.O.A.T.,” Blanche says. The “greatest liar of all time.”
May 28, 2024, 12:45 p.m. ET
Michael Gold
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche listed 10 reasons that he believed the jury should have reasonable doubt as to Trump’s guilt. But the list was hard to follow. He misstated the fourth point, which he then broke into three parts. And he gave all of the points equal weight, even as he only glanced over some of them in the rest of his summation.
May 28, 2024, 12:47 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The last reason for reasonable doubt on Blanche’s list is simply: Michael Cohen. Blanche calls Cohen: “The human embodiment of reasonable doubt, literally.”
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May 28, 2024, 12:44 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Using a slide labeled “manipulation of evidence,” Todd Blanche is arguing again that Michael Cohen somehow tweaked the digital evidence from his phones, including recordings. Blanche says jurors cannot trust those recordings, and more broadly, they cannot rely on Cohen himself — which, the defense has said many times, is a reason not to convict Trump.
May 28, 2024, 12:42 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche again seeks to address the fact that Trump was in the White House when he signed nine of the checks, which is one of the most difficult aspects of the defense lawyers' argument. They will have to hope that the jurors find it convincing that Trump was distracted when he signed those checks, and that his signature does not suggest his knowledge of the scheme he is accused of participating in.
May 28, 2024, 12:38 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche announces that he is almost done, and acknowledges “I’ve been talking a lot.” But before he concludes, he says, he will offer a list of 10 pieces of evidence that should induce reasonable doubt in the jury.
May 28, 2024, 12:38 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche shows a tweet in which Michael Cohen promoted a t-shirt featuring a cartoon drawing of Trump in a orange jumpsuit behind bars.
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May 28, 2024, 12:36 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is replaying defense exhibits in which Michael Cohen sounds giddy, almost maniacal, as he reacts to the news that Trump has been indicted.
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May 28, 2024, 12:37 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The audio was among one of the most damning pieces of evidence entered to impeach Cohen.
May 28, 2024, 12:35 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now digging into Michael Cohen’s lengthy list of lies. The challenge here for the defense team is that the defendant, Trump, is a very known commodity with his own credibility issues.
May 28, 2024, 12:34 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is listing the people who he says Michael Cohen has lied to, which includes his wife, his children, his banker, the Federal Election Commission and “every single reporter he talked to for about a year.” Blanche tries what sounds like another attempt at a punchline about Cohen: “He’s literally like the M.V.P. of liars.” There’s no audible reaction in the courtroom.
May 28, 2024, 12:35 p.m. ET
Susanne Craig
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The line did draw laughter in the overflow room.
May 28, 2024, 12:32 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche reminds the jurors that there is an oath to tell the truth and says that it “matters to most.”
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May 28, 2024, 12:31 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now mocking Michael Cohen’s testimony about the evening of Oct. 24, 2016. This was testimony on which the defense lawyers felt they had scored a key point, because they found evidence that Cohen had talked to Keith Schiller, Trump's bodyguard, about a 14-year-old who was pranking him. Cohen later testified that he had talked to both Schiller and Trump during the call.
But the defense clearly thinks it has a winning argument here. “It was a lie,” Blanche yells of Cohen’s testimony that he talked to Trump about the hush-money payment that night. He follows up by calling it “perjury,” emphasizing each syllable in the word.
May 28, 2024, 12:26 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche has moved on to Michael Cohen’s relationship with Robert Costello, a lawyer who Cohen testified had been part of a pressure campaign to keep him from turning against Trump in 2018.
Blanche argues that there is “no doubt” that Costello, who is one of only two witnesses the defense lawyers called, served Cohen as a lawyer. Prosecutors may seek to highlight that remark when they begin their own closing — the trial presented plenty of doubt about the nature of the relationship between Cohen and Costello.
May 28, 2024, 12:23 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche seizes on a helpful piece of testimony from Michael Cohen, who told Stormy Daniels's lawyer in a recorded call in October 2017 — before he turned against Trump — that he cared about his boss and that he wasn’t going to play “penny wise, pound foolish” and betray him.This plays right into Blanche’s argument that Cohen was always prioritizing himself — and his wallet.
On the recording, Cohen follows that remark up with another helpful comment for the defense: “I’m sitting there and I’m saying to myself, ‘What about me?’”
May 28, 2024, 12:25 p.m. ET
Kate Christobek
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche suggests that it made “perfect sense” for Michael Cohen to have made the payment without telling Trump, because he was hoping to get a fancy job at the White House if he won or better job at the Trump Organization if he lost.
May 28, 2024, 12:12 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now arguing that Stormy Daniels was called to testify in order to inflame the jurors’ emotions and to embarrass Trump. Prosecutors object, but Justice Merchan allows it.
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May 28, 2024, 12:10 p.m. ET
Maggie Haberman
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now arguing the publication of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump boasted about grabbing women by the genitals, is being portrayed by prosecutors as something it wasn’t: a “doomsday event” for his presidential campaign. Having covered that race, I can tell you that the view of a lot of people around Trump — and in the broader G.O.P. — was that it could be catastrophic for his electoral chances. That was so much the case that there were discussions about asking Trump to drop out of the race.
May 28, 2024, 12:11 p.m. ET
Jonah Bromwich
Reporting from inside the courthouse
We have no idea what the jurors are thinking and facial expressions are notoriously hard to read. But I thought I saw the foreperson — who sits close to the gallery and has had a skeptical, slightly amused expression on all day — flash a look of disbelief as Blanche argued that the “Access Hollywood” tape was just another difficult day in a campaign full of them.
May 28, 2024, 12:13 p.m. ET
Jesse McKinley
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche says that Trump’s reaction to the “Access Hollywood” tape was not what is being depicted by prosecutors — “He was concerned about his wife, he was concerned about his family,” he says — though he adds, moments later: “I’m not suggesting that it wasn’t a big deal for the campaign. Of course not. It was.”
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May 28, 2024, 11:42 a.m. ET
Matthew Haag
Need a refresher on Trump’s criminal trial? Catch up here.
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Closing arguments began Tuesday in the weekslong criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, the first president to face prosecution in American history, in a case that stems from a hush-money deal to a p*rn star who said she had sex with him.
Mr. Trump faces several legal challenges related to his business and political activities, and the one underway in New York City was brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. It could be the only case against him to go to trial before the 2024 presidential election.
The trial began in April and will be in the jurors’ hands this week, following weeks of salacious testimony about sex scandals and granular detail about corporate documents. Mr. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, all tied to the former president’s role in a hush-money payment to the p*rn star, Stormy Daniels.
The charges do not involve the hush deal itself but Mr. Trump’s reimbursem*nts for it to his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who gave $130,000 to Ms. Daniels to buy her silence days before the 2016 election. Prosecutors said that the repayments were deliberately mislabeled as “legal expenses” in business ledgers to hide the deal.
If convicted, Mr. Trump faces probation or up to four years in prison.
That payoff was not the only such deal that prosecutors highlighted with the 20 witnesses they called to the stand. Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Trump had orchestrated a broader scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by directing his allies to purchase damaging stories about him to keep them under wraps. The defense called two witnesses.
Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing. He also assailed the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, for bringing the charges, accusing him of carrying out a politically motivated witch hunt, and he has attacked the judge, Juan M. Merchan.
Catch up on the trial here.
The accusations
The charges trace to the $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels, which Mr. Cohen testified he had made at Mr. Trump’s direction. Ms. Daniels also testified about her account of having sex with Mr. Trump, saying it happened in 2006 in Nevada after they met at a celebrity golf tournament.
While serving as the commander in chief a decade later, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen, and the way he did so constituted fraud, prosecutors said. In internal records, Mr. Trump’s company classified the repayment as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. Yet there were no such expenses, the prosecutors say, and the retainer agreement was fictional, too. Mr. Trump’s defense team has said there was a valid oral retainer that had not been recorded on paper.
Those records underpin the 34 counts of falsifying business records: 11 counts involve the checks, 11 center on monthly invoices Mr. Cohen submitted to the company and 12 involve entries in the general ledger for Mr. Trump’s trust.
Additional hush payments
Mr. Bragg’s office linked Mr. Trump to three hush-money deals that prosecutors argued were made to bury negative news during his presidential campaign. Two of the deals were paid for by The National Enquirer, which helped promote Mr. Trump during the campaign while also suppressing negative headlines about him, its former publisher testified.
The first involved the tabloid’s payment of $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know that Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock, a rumor that turned out to be false.
The Enquirer also paid Karen McDougal, Playboy’s Playmate of the Year in 1998 who, during the 2016 campaign, wanted to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump beginning in 2006. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the tabloid, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”
The felony charges
Falsifying business records in New York State can be a misdemeanor, but it can become a felony if prosecutors prove that the records were falsified to conceal another crime.
Mr. Bragg has accused Mr. Trump of concealing a federal campaign finance violation and a state election-law crime. Those, prosecutors say, involve the hush-money payoffs to Ms. Daniels and Ms. McDougal. The payments, they argue, were illegal donations to Mr. Trump’s campaign.
Prosecutors did not have to charge Mr. Trump with a secondary crime or prove that he committed it, but they had to show to the jurors that there was intent to “commit or conceal” a second crime.
The witnesses
Much of Mr. Cohen’s testimony was corroborated by other witnesses, including former White House aides such as Hope Hicks.
The defense argued that Mr. Trump was a victim of extortion, led by Mr. Cohen. His lawyers portrayed Mr. Cohen as a Trump-hating liar, pointing out that he and the former president had a falling-out years ago.
The defense’s main witness was a lawyer linked to Mr. Trump’s circle, Robert J. Costello, who in 2018 had acted as Mr. Cohen’s back channel to Mr. Trump’s legal team. Defense lawyers used his fractious testimony to paint Mr. Cohen as untrustworthy.
Mr. Trump did not take the stand.
Justice Merchan
Justice Merchan is a veteran judge known as a no-nonsense, drama-averse jurist. The judge issued a gag order to protect prosecutors, witnesses and his own family from Mr. Trump’s vitriol. And yet the former president continued to post articles with pictures of the justice’s daughter.
In the trial’s early days, Justice Merchan fined Mr. Trump $10,000 for 10 violations of that order.
The maximum sentence
The charges against Mr. Trump are all Class E felonies, the lowest category of felonies in New York. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of four years. Justice Merchan has made it clear that he takes white-collar crime seriously and could throw Mr. Trump behind bars.
But nothing in the law requires Justice Merchan to imprison Mr. Trump if he’s convicted by a jury. The judge could instead sentence him to probation.
Mr. Trump would likely appeal a guilty verdict, which could take months or longer.
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May 28, 2024, 11:29 a.m. ET
Nate Schweber
Throngs waited through the weekend for courtroom seats. Few got them.
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Erika Del Priore took a short “disco nap” Sunday night and was in line for the Trump trial at 1:30 a.m. Monday. Joining her at 2 a.m. was Jennifer Weinstein, whom she had befriended earlier this month on another all-night line wait. Behind them was John Lamb, a Montana farmer who traveled all night and arrived at 4:30 a.m.
They almost made it in.
With closing arguments in the first criminal trial of an American president came a sudden surge of interest, with citizens and professional line sitters waiting through the night for the handful of seats available in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building.
Outside the courthouse, lines were as long as they have been since the trial began April 15. Normally most reporters get a seat, either in the courtroom itself or in an overflow room, where the trial is broadcast. On Tuesday, some reporters were turned away.
The overflow room was packed, and court officers opened up normally empty jury seats for lawyers who were not involved in this case but eager to hear closing arguments.
Outside the courthouse, Ms. Del Priore and Ms. Weinstein put a positive spin on their defeat, saying they enjoyed the company of each other and Mr. Lamb.
“To me, this is New York,” Ms. Del Priore said.
“I’m thrilled to be this close,” Ms. Weinstein added. Mr. Lamb hoped to see Mr. Trump for the second time in a few days. He had traveled to New York from the Libertarian convention in Washington, D.C.
“We booed him so hard!” said Mr. Lamb, who is running as a Libertarian for Montana’s secretary of state.
Ms. Del Priore, Ms. Weinstein and Mr. Lamb were 19th, 20th and 21st in line. The last person to get in was 17th and had arrived at 9 p.m. Sunday.
Susanne Craig contributed reporting.
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May 28, 2024, 11:08 a.m. ET
Reid J. Epstein,Neil Vigdor,Michael Gold and Nate Schweber
Biden’s campaign trolls Trump outside the Manhattan courthouse, in a first.
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After first ignoring former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, then beginning to make sly insinuations about how he was “free on Wednesdays,” the court’s day off, President Biden’s campaign has jumped in with a stunt designed to emphasize the unprecedented situation of a major party’s presidential candidate awaiting a felony verdict.
The Biden campaign on Tuesday held a news conference outside the Manhattan courthouse with Robert De Niro, the actor whose voice narrates the campaign’s latest ad, as well as Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone, two former U.S. Capitol Police officers who have attacked Mr. Trump over his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. De Niro said that Mr. Trump had engaged in a “coward’s violence” after the 2020 election.
“He directs the mob to do his dirty work for him,” he said.
After the news conference, Mr. De Niro veered far off the script the Biden campaign wrote for him by directly addressing the prospect of a Mr. Trump conviction.
“The fact is whether he’s acquitted, whether it’s hung jury, he is guilty — and we all know it,” Mr. DeNiro said. “I’ve never seen a guy get out of so many things, and we all know this. Everybody in the world knows this.”
Asked if he thought Mr. Trump should be in jail, Mr. De Niro replied: “I sure do. Absolutely.”
The news conference was the sort of thing the Trump campaign would have done from the beginning if the political situation were reversed.
The Biden campaign has for weeks kept to the letter of the president’s directive to not address the criminal charges Mr. Trump faces or offer commentary on the trial, but its decision to dispatch surrogates to the Manhattan courthouse while the former president’s lawyer was delivering his closing argument was hardly subtle.
The news conference’s intended focus was to draw attention to his actions that led to the events of Jan. 6, which are the subject of another federal criminal case pending against Mr. Trump. In Manhattan, Mr. Trump’s is charged with falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to a p*rn star before the 2016 election.
Mr. De Niro also mentioned the civil case last year in which a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine writer. In January, the former president was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to Ms. Carroll. The Biden campaign has rarely discussed that case or the verdict against Mr. Trump.
“Just a couple of blocks from here a jury found him liable for sexual abuse,” Mr. De Niro said.
The Biden campaign sought to argue that bringing Mr. De Niro and the two Capitol Police officers to Mr. Trump’s trial was not a commentary on the case but on the news media scrum gathered to cover it.
“We’re not here today because of what’s going on over there,” Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director, told the assembled reporters outside the courthouse. “We’re here today because you all are here.”
With a number of demonstrators stationed in a protest area outside the courthouse, many of the news conferences throughout the trial have been met with some level of heckling. A throng of Trump supporters shouted at Mr. De Niro and the former Capitol Police officers as they appeared downtown, calling him an elitist and them traitors.
Mr. Trump has sought to tie together all four of his pending criminal cases and has argued baselessly that Mr. Biden is behind them all. In addition to the Manhattan trial, he is charged in separate federal cases over his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, along with a Georgia case related to his push to reverse that year’s results.
The Trump campaign quickly jumped on the Biden news conference.
“The Biden folks have finally done it,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign. “After months of saying that politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made it with a campaign event.”
He characterized Mr. De Niro’s involvement as a desperate reach for a campaign that needed to lift Mr. Biden’s poll numbers, referring to him as a “washed-up actor” and arguing that Biden campaign staff members at the news conference had sensed it was a bad idea to stand in the proverbial shadow of the courthouse.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said the Biden campaign was “making a political mockery” of the criminal case with its appearance.
Asked about the Biden campaign’s contention that it had held a news conference at the courthouse only because the national news media had been stationed there for weeks, Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s press secretary, responded simply: “They’re pathetic.”
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