Trump is 'innocent,' defense lawyer tells jury as closing arguments get underway in hush money trial

closing arguments are underway right now in the historic criminal trial against former president Donald Trump but the prosecution and defense lawyers getting their chance to talk to the jury directly before the case is in their hands ABC's Reena Roy live outside the courthouse now where prosecutors are delivering their closing argument right now Reena yeah Brian that's right the defense went first as you said the prosecution is now getting their turn they're in about hour two now they're expecting to go for about 4 4 and a half hours we could see the jury start deliberating as early as tomorrow morning the prosecution and defense getting their final chance to try and sway the jury in their favor in the hush money payment trial against former president Donald Trump in their closing argument prosecutors attempting to convince all 12 jurors to convict Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records when he ordered his former attorney Michael Cohen pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for Silence about their alleged sexual encounter but defense attorney Todd Blan telling the jury Trump is innocent calling prosecutors theory of the case absurd and the testimony from their Witnesses irrelevant over the course of a month the prosecution calling 20 witnesses to the stand including Cohen and Daniels arguing that Trump tried to hide damaging information from voters ahead of the 2016 election by labeling Cohen's reimbursement as a legal expense they have another witness here being Stormy Daniels that they're arguing is trying to histort the former president The credibility of both these Witnesses amount to how big this story was and why they needed to suppress it and also the mechanics of how they did that so attacking these two witnesses I think are beneficial for the defense the defense calling Cohen the human embodiment of Reasonable Doubt even calling him the gloat or the greatest liar of all time they also tried to distance Trump from those invoices and vouchers at the heart of the case and insisted Trump was too busy to look at the checks he was signing blanch even going as far to say you cannot send someone to prison based upon the words of Michael Cohen prosecutors saying the defense focused on Cohen as a deflection adding that Trump chose Cohen as his fixer saying he got the jobs the defendant wanted to keep quiet jurors laser focus during closing arguments at some point some even nodding their heads as blanch spoke Trump denying that sexual encounter with Daniels and pleading not guilty this is a dark day in America we have a rigged court case that should have never been brought and Trump today has more support in court from his family including from his children Eric Donald Trump Jr and his daughter Tiffany Brian