10 smoking guns in the Trump hush-money trial -- and why jurors don't have to believe Cohen or Stormy to convict

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

70% : In another email from that same day, People's Exhibit 204, Cohen is assured of Giuliani's gratitude for "this back channel of communication" to Trump.
63% : Under "Liablities" -- which is the section where Trump must list the money he's borrowed -- Trump certifies that in 2017, he "fully reimbursed" Cohen an interest-free sum of between $100,000 and $250,000.
62% : It's proof that Trump continued to pay close attention to his personal spending in 2017.
62% : Trump wanted to display a photo of his mother, Westerhout said, on the credenza behind his desk in the Oval Office.
61% : Nine times throughout his first year in office, Trump signed checks that are now key exhibits in the hush-money trial.
60% : "Pay with cash," Trump then instructs.
60% : People's 374 is an email showing Duran passing this request to her loan servicing department at 12:22 p.m.People's 349 is a call log showing that on that day, Cohen called Trump at 12:26 p.m. and Trump called Cohen at 12:34 p.m.
59% : Trump tweets this admission just five months after signing his last $35,000 "retainer" check to Cohen.
58% : The frame was 15% off, Trump was told before he approved its purchase.
53% : Once assembled, it bolsters Cohen's testimony that shortly after 12 noon on October 26, 2017, Trump gave his final approval to the hush-money payment.
50% : Jurors have only Cohen's word that Trump saw it.
49% : Cohen testified that immediately after these calls with Trump, he took the elevator down from his Trump Organization offices at Trump Tower.
48% : Why is this non-prosecution agreement -- People's Exhibit 182 -- our ninth smoking gun?It shows Pecker admitting to same kind of federal campaign-contribution offense -- in his case, for the $150,000 in hush money that silenced McDougal on Trump's behalf -- that's at the center of the falsification case.
46% : The invoice shows Trump personally signing off on the golf club's $6,974.01 annual dues and "food minimum."
46% : So Trump, they say, authorized a communications back channel, whereby Cohen could talk to attorney Robert Costello, who could relay messages to his buddy Rudy Giuliani, then Trump's lawyer.
44% : This email, our gun number 6, again shows the covert, thrice-removed hand of Trump, pulling strings.
44% : Twelve days later, on May 15, 2018, Trump affixed his black-Sharpie signature to a routine government disclosure form called an "Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report.
43% : This proven micromanaging makes it easier for prosecutors to argue that Trump was paying attention when he signed $35,000 of his own cash over to Cohen -- who testified that his actual legal work as personal attorney to the president amounted to less than 20 hours in all of 2017.
41% : But prosecutors can argue Tuesday that it clinches the case for conspiracy and records-falsification -- subject to connection to Trump himself.
40% : Trump asks his attorney and "fixer," Cohen, just two months before the 2016 election.
39% : So even in the White House, we have Trump signing off on golf fees and picture frames.
38% : It will be up to jurors to decide if Trump would have blindly affixed his signature to nine $35,000 checks if he really believed they were "retainers" as labeled -- and if he really believed he was paying a lawyer who hardly worked for him anymore.
38% : It will also be up to jurors to decide if Cohen and Weisselberg would have cooked Trump's books -- hiding the true nature of what Cohen was being paid for -- without the knowledge and approval of Trump, the micromanaging boss footing the bill.
36% : Trump was especially distracted -- even "multi-tasking" -- when he signed each of those nine checks, the defense has already suggested.
36% : It's Trump acknowledging what prosecutors allege in those 34 felony falsification counts: That he knew Cohen's monthly retainer checks were not for legal fees at all.
32% : This phone conversation, secretly recorded by Cohen, catches Trump calling the shots as the two men discuss financing for a $150,000 hush-money payment.
31% : The Trump-Cohen phone call shows Trump in the pilot's seat of the conspiracy, prosecutors will argue.
31% : Why are these hand-signed checks so important?Trump can argue that he never saw or handled most of the 34 business records that prosecutors say he "caused" to be falsified to hide the Daniels hush money, records that include a year's worth of bogus Cohen "retainer" invoices and entries in the Trump Org business ledgers.
31% : But Trump cannot claim he never saw or handled these nine checks.
30% : Prosecutors can be expected to argue that this recording directly connects Trump to an illegal campaign conspiracy.
30% : Trump has been in office for a year and, thanks to The Wall Street Journal, the world now knows about his porn-star hush-money scandal.
28% : Because it makes it impossible for Trump to say he had no role in hush-money financing.
27% : The hush money was meant to keep voters in the dark about former Playboy model Karen McDougal's claim -- denied by Trump -- of a nearly yearlong affair with the then-Apprentice star in 2006.
27% : A week later, on May 3, 2018, the hush-money scandal was still in the news, and Trump posted what he may have believed would be a self-exonerating tweet.
26% : Jurors will be instructed by the judge on Tuesday that they cannot view the AMI agreement and Cohen's guilty plea as proof that Trump, too, violated federal campaign finance law -- but these are tough bells to unring.
22% : Defense lawyer Todd Blanche will likely argue on Tuesday that Trump was too busy running the country to have bothered with the nitty-gritty of falsifying documents.
22% : It suggests the nearly invisible hand of Trump, covertly pulling strings to keep Cohen from cooperating with the justice department and spilling any election conspiracy beans.
20% : Throughout April, Trump worried Cohen would "flip" against him, prosecutors argue.

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