The jury
asked to hear parts
of the jury instructions,
specifically that dealt
with the idea of facts
and inferences
that can be drawn from facts.
And specifically,
they want to know about something
called the rain metaphor.
With us
now, CNN legal
analyst Joey Jackson, Jeremy Solar
and Jim Schultz,
also with us from remote.
Joey, very quickly, the rain metaphor
and what that might mean here.
Okay. Very important. Right?
A fact is a fact.
I see it,
I know it, it's substantively a fact.
There are other things that are facts,
but I may not see
why is that critical here.
Defense arguing that Cohen provides
the only direct link.
If that's the case, prosecutors say
not only do
we have things that corroborate Cohen,
but we have things
we can draw inferences from what he said.
Right.
Circumstantial evidence.
John, what a circumstance. Call evidence.
We all walk outside right now.
We don't see a droplet of rain
coming from the sky,
but the car seemed to be wet.
There are puddles that are in the street.
There are other people
who were wearing raincoats.
What can we logically infer?
That it was raining outside.
So did you see it, John?
Did you see a cave?
Did you see it? Jeremy?
None of us saw it,
but we could reasonably infer, based
upon the surrounding circumstances
that it happened.
That's the prosecution's
main argument here.
If the jury buys
the circumstantial rain metaphor,
it spells trouble for the defense.
And we'll just throw
in a little common sense.
That's the other word
we need in there as well. Common sense?
Yes.
also, the rain metaphor
sounds even more ominous.
The way Joey was describing it.
But, Jeremy, talk about
when you
if they want more information
and we read the tea leaves on it.
This is,
this has the defense team sweating.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Even if we don't see the sweat.
But we see it over here on the left.
Well, have that common sense.
Yeah.
So absolutely, this is seems favorable.
We don't know we're not there.
But it seems very favorable.
Even the reading
of the first jury instruction,
pardon me of the first count indictment.
That's not because we're really stuck on
whether that particular item
was a falsification of business records.
That is all or the same, 34 counts.
They want to know what the elements are.
This is moving and progressing
the right way for the prosecution.
Intimate.
Schultz, if you are with us, in a way,
the prosecution's case is a rain metaphor
case it is.
The sidewalk is wet case.
Type of case.
An inference from facts.
Now, we don't know why
the jury wants to hear that.
We don't know if there is,
you know, 12 jurors who want to acquit.
But one jury is saying
we need to hear the rain metaphor.
So I want to convince the other 12 of you
that could be it.
But this is a sidewalk is wet
type of case, isn't it?
Well, that yes, it is.
And I think this is just indicative
of the discussions that they're having.
Right.
And I think you hit it
right on the nail, right on the head.
I think they're probably debating
right now.
Look, there's there's not the
if they don't believe
Michael Cohen
right then, then how do they get there.
And they have to get there
through circumstantial evidence.
And I think that's probably
the internal debate going on right now.
There are probably some jurors
that are saying,
I don't think it gets there.
There are probably some others saying,
yes, it does.
And as they continue to deliberate,
they're going to want to hear so that
so that
no matter what camp you're in
and that in that jury room, you know,
you're they're going to want to hear,
you know, what the judge has to say,
what the instructions are as it relates
to that circumstantial evidence,
so that they can try to come
to some agreement.
One of the other things that came up
is that the judge,
one of the noses that they wanted to,
they wanted to be
they wanted to be read the first count.
They wanted
how this all relates to the first count.
And Jeremy just reinforced this point
because it's
you think it's not about count one
because count two,
two, three and four the same. Correct.
I mean, you in theoretically can find
something was falsified
and something was it.
But it's the same elements.
Doesn't matter.
You can take out the factual piece
meaning what was allegedly falsified,
whether it was an invoice or a check.
But the elements are what's critical.
And if they're asking
for the circumstantial evidence
and they want to know all this,
read back in terms
of the jury instructions.
It tells me to to
you know, the point that was just made.
It doesn't mean that
everyone is on one side.
There could be trying
to convince a couple or a lot,
but this is progressing.
If I'm the prosecution in the way
I want it to progress.
and Joey,
after all this is done,
I'm just going to take it
while all the read backs will take,
you know, maybe an hour here after that.
What are you watching for?
Do you think this may be it
from the jury,
or do you think there'll
be more questions in. About what?
So, John, hard to tell if it's it.
We know what they're struggling
with, right?
Based upon what they're asking for.
Was there a conspiracy or a cover up?
That's the prosecution's theory.
So they going back, what did pecker se
what did pecker say to Trump?
What it
what it Packer
when they met with Cohen and Trump
and Hope Hicks
coming in and out of that meeting.
What happened there?
We know what their focus is
and they want to be apprized
as to specifically what the law is,
but they may have additional questions
as they go back.
We know, obviously
what their thought process is as of now.
the jury in Donald
Trump's criminal hush money
trial is back to work.
The seven men and five women
will ultimately decide
whether a former president
is convicted of felony crimes
for the first time in the history
of the United States of America, and Mr.
Trump is in court
awaiting their decision.
We just learned
that the jury has submitted yet
another note.
This is the third one about yesterday's
request for the judge's instruction
to be re read,
and another requesting
for headphones to use
with the evidence laptop.
Yeah, clearly a tech savvy
jury because they asked specifically
for a certain kind of headphones here.
But Jake, of course
before those jurors left
yesterday to go home,
they asked to rehear
four key
pieces of testimony
throughout this trial,
including from Michael Cohen
in the former National Enquirer
tabloid, King
David Pecker and his account of the 2015
Trump Tower meeting.
Also, Packer's 2016 phone call
with Donald Trump
about the former Playboy
Playmate Karen McDougal
and David Packer's testimony
about not finalizing a deal.
A payment from Trump to reimburse Ami
for Mcdougal's rights to her story
about her alleged
affair with Donald Trump.
Just moments ago, Trump repeated some
all too familiar
false claims about a rigged trial
as he walked in to the court.
As we are waiting for the verdict here,
but still getting into the notes
as of this moment,
Paula Reid and Kristen
Holmes are here with me,
and right now what the judge is doing
is he's rereading
the parts of the instructions
that the jury was curious about.
And there's one interesting part,
which was about David Packer's
non-prosecution agreement,
basically, that they could not
he could not be prosecuted.
He was basically on the on the stand.
And what he's reading is, you'll
recall the testimony
you heard about when David Pecker
was an executive at am I.
The day went into
a non-prosecution agreement
with federal prosecutors.
And basically he was saying,
this is to help you as a jury
assess his credibility.
You're not supposed to deduce
whether or not anyone else
the defendant here committed a crime
based on the fact
that David Pecker
entered into that
non-prosecution agreement via am I,
but it's just to help you assess
what he's saying to you
on the witness stand.
But it's notable
that the jury wanted to hear that again.
Yeah.
And to the jury's credit,
I think we were all a little surprised
that they wanted to re hear instructions
they had just heard a few hours prior.
But in seeing these,
sort of read back, we have the, the text.
I get why they probably wanted to
hear this.
Some of this stuff is really complicated.
They wanted to hear things about,
the hearsay exception.
And here
they're getting into the burden of proof.
and of course,
if the government has proven
this case beyond a reasonable doubt,
you have to find the defendant guilty.
But things like this, again, how you use
David Packer's, you know,
previous arrangement,
previous agreements with the government
that is significant,
especially when they're clearly
looking at evaluating at some
some of the things
that David Packer said.
So this makes sense.
And look,
I definitely couldn't
get off the doubt
about why they needed to hear this
and reiterate, it is crazy
that they don't just give the jury
a copy of instructions,
they have to ask the judge to reread it.
And right now he's reading the part
about reasonable doubt.
And this is a really
I mean, this is a critical piece
of this question because obviously,
and as the instructions laid it out,
it would say that
it's not beyond all possible doubt,
but it's not he's probably guilty.
It has to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
And he also is reiterating
an important part
that I know
the defense obviously cares about,
which is that
the burden of proof
here is not on Trump's legal team.
It's on the prosecution
for making their case here.
Well, exactly.
And the defense really cares
about that, particularly
because they want to be pointing
to the fact that there were witnesses
who allegedly could have cooperated.
Michael Cohen's story
that the prosecution didn't
bring, like Keith Schiller,
like Allen Weisselberg,
who's currently in Rikers,
we believe that they weren't
brought up, likely
because the prosecution
didn't think that they would be
friendly witnesses.
These are people
who are still Trump loyalists.
Now the judge is saying,
whatever your verdict may be,
it must not rest upon
baseless speculation.
Now, this is really interesting
because we're talking about
two different things
here,
and this is what the jury wanted to hear
about one baseless speculation.
They could cannot rest on this,
but they also wanted to hear about that
rain analogy,
talking about inference
and what you can infer
and using facts for inference.
So they're clearly kind of
getting the difference here.
And re listening
to the difference
between speculation
and inference as he's
going back through this