Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 17
Opening arguments deliver starkly different portraits of the former US president in historic criminal trial.
In a historic day in the United States, a New York jury has heard opening arguments in the hush-money case against Donald Trump — the first criminal trial against a former president in the country’s history.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo on Monday laid out the allegations against Trump, who is accused of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to an adult film star with whom he is accused of having a sexual relationship.
Prosecutors allege that the money was intended to silence the adult entertainer, Stormy Daniels, before the 2016 US presidential election.
“This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up,” Colangelo said, as reported by US media outlets inside the New York City courtroom.
Trump’s legal team also presented its defence in an opening statement on Monday morning, rejecting the state’s allegations in their entirety. “President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes,” his lawyer, Todd Blanche, said.
The opening arguments set the tone for what is expected to be a tense, six-week trial, the outcome of which, experts said, may have wide-reaching consequences for the country.
“Each side did what most legal experts expected,” said Ronald Sullivan Jr, a professor at Harvard Law School and director of the Criminal Justice Institute.
“The prosecution characterised the conduct as a scheme, and in contrast, the defence came out and characterised the conduct as not criminal at all,” said Sullivan.
“I think this is where the battlelines are going to continue to fall.”
Source: Al Jazeera
