“This was not spin or communication strategy; this was a planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected, through illegal expenditures, to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior, using doctored corporate records and bank forms to conceal those payments along the way,” Colangelo said.

“It was election fraud. Pure and simple.”

Pecker, who received immunity to testify in Cohen’s 2018 federal case, is expected to walk the jury through the plot to bury rumors about Trump’s infidelities and former Playboy model Karen McDougal about her claims she had a 10-month affair with Trump early into his marriage to Melania.

The ex-National Enquirer head is expected to say that he backed out of the deal after consulting with a lawyer and getting cold feet.

The jurors’ identities will remain anonymous to the public, but Trump knows them.

What is Trump’s defense?

The former president’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, told jurors his client was an innocent man — and a husband and father and “a person, just like you and just like me” — guilty of nothing more than signing checks to his lawyer “while he was running the country.”

He said trying to influence an election wasn’t a crime but “democracy,” and that Trump had a right to defend himself against the lurid allegations.

“There’s nothing illegal about what you will hear happened among AMI and National Enquirer and Mr. Pecker and President Trump,” Blanche said. “It happens with politicians, with wealthy people, with famous people.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies alleging he repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records in 2017 in paying back Cohen for the hush money payoff to Daniels.

©2024 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.