Jury Reviews Testimony on Day 2 of Trump Trial Deliberations

NEW YORK — Court is back in session for the second day of deliberations in the criminal trial of Donald Trump. The panel of 12 Manhattan residents is starting Thursday by having some of what they have already heard repeated back to them, after ending the first day by asking to review portions of testimony and the judge’s instructions on the law.

Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels. His onetime fixer, Michael Cohen, made the payment on the eve of the 2016 election to silence her account of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Prosecutors say Trump faked the records to conceal his reimbursement of Cohen. If convicted, Trump faces a sentence ranging from probation to four years in prison.

Here’s what to know:

— Jurors sought a refresher: Thursday’s session began with Judge Juan M. Merchan repeating some of the instructions he gave the jury Wednesday, which serve as a guide to their deliberations. The jurors also asked to again hear portions of testimony by Cohen and David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, who prosecutors say was part of a conspiracy to suppress unflattering stories on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 campaign. One portion of the testimony related to another hush-money deal, with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says she had a monthslong affair with Trump in 2005 and 2006. (Trump denies this.) McDougal, who did not testify, was paid $150,000 in August 2016 by The National Enquirer’s parent company in exchange for her story, which the Enquirer then did not publish, a practice known as “catch and kill.”

— Dueling views of the case: A prosecutor from the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in closing arguments that Trump had tried to “hoodwink the American voter” with a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. “All roads lead to the man who benefited the most: Donald Trump,” the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, told the jury.

Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, argued in his closing that Trump’s actions were not crimes, but merely business as it is commonly practiced. The case, he told jurors, hinged on the testimony of Cohen, whom he called “the greatest liar of all time.”

— There’s no way to know when a verdict might come: After closing arguments that lasted until 8 p.m. Tuesday, jurors had about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations on Wednesday. It’s common to wait days, or even weeks, for a verdict.

— The core of the charges: Prosecutors say Trump tried to disguise repayments to Cohen as ordinary legal fees. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies that he had sex with Daniels, despite her testimony, under oath, about a sexual encounter with him in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .