CNN Legal Analysts Puts Odds on Trump Conviction in Hush Money Trial Days Before Closing Arguments

The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump resumes this week, with closing arguments expected on Tuesday. On Monday, CNN’s Jim Acosta tried to give viewers a sense of what they could expect — including some betting odds.

In a conversation with CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, Acosta laid out some possible outcomes for the first former president to stand trial on criminal charges. Eisen first summed up what the jury would be considering as they entered deliberation:

[I]n terms of the arguments, battle will be joined around three issues. One: Can the jury believe the critical testimony of Michael Cohen, as it’s corroborated and supported by a mountain of evidence? In a sense, the prosecution’s entire work across 20 days of trial was to corroborate Cohen. Two: Can the jury find that Donald Trump, beyond a reasonable doubt, intentionally made that hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, 2016, in order to influence his federal campaign after Access Hollywood catastrophe, another sex scandal. Issue three: Did Trump participate in covering that up by creating false documents, Jim, including nine checks with his own signature on them!

While Eisen seemed to have come to his own conclusion, Mariotti agreed that things were not looking good for Team Trump:

Acosta: Renato, is this going to come down to Michael Cohen? What do you think?

Mariotti: Certainly, that’s a big part of it. I mean, I think realistically this is a case that could have been winnable by the defense if they pursued a different strategy, if they focused on the areas where Michael Cohen was not as corroborated. But they really haven’t had a focused presentation. They haven’t tried to focus the the jury on the issues as succinctly as Norm just put them. They’ve really been all over the place, you know, scorched earth, attacking not just Michael Cohen but Stormy Daniels, contesting everything. The fact of an encounter in a hotel room, the fact of the hush money payments, and so on.

I think that we’re going to get more of that scorched earth, “attack everything” approach in the closing arguments. And if that’s the case, I do think there’s going to be a conviction here. Really, there needs to be an entirely different approach. And I’m not sure that Donald Trump’s willing to let his defense attorneys pursue a strategy that has a chance of winning in this case.

So, what about the odds? Acosta asked his legal panel:

Acosta: What’s the likelihood we will see a conviction here? And how could that play out?

Eisen: Well, Renato Mariotti is one of our most experienced trial lawyers, Jim. And he has hit the nail on the head. This was a winnable case. It still is not a slam dunk in my view, having been there every day, for the prosecution. I think the odds of a conviction are somewhere upwards of 80 percent. The defense, in part because of this scattershot approach, the defense is not really gunning for an acquittal. That’s out of reach here. What they are hoping for is one angry juror, that there is one juror who either feels–

Acosta: The holdout.

Eisen: — such sympathy for Trump or, just for whatever reason, does not follow the evidence and the law, the holdout. Yeah, that’s what they’re trying for. Just one.

Watch the video above via CNN.