By Seyi Babalola
Donald Trump, a former US president, is the first sitting president to go on trial in the country’s history. He entered a not-guilty plea to all counts.
According to Reuters, Trump’s hush-money trial is presently in progress, and his attorneys are arguing that their client did not commit any crimes.
Before Trump’s rematch with President Joe Biden on November 5, maybe the only one of his four criminal charges to proceed to trial, Matthew Colangelo, the prosecutor for New York, and Todd Blanche, the candidate’s attorney, gave their opening comments.
Colangelo told jurors that Trump engaged in a “catch and kill” conspiracy with Pecker and his former lawyer Michael Cohen to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
He said, “The case is about a conspiracy and a cover-up, an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election, and then the steps that Donald Trump took to conceal that illegal election fraud”.
He also told the jury that they would hear Trump working out the details of the scheme in recorded conversations.
However, Trump’s lawyer, Blanche, spoke shortly after prosecutors told jurors that the former President broke the law by deceiving voters.
He said, “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy. They put something sinister on this idea like it’s a crime.”
