In closing arguments on Tuesday, Joshua Steinglass told jurors the $US130,000 ($NZ211,700) payment that ensured porn star Stormy Daniels would not discuss an alleged sexual encounter was part of a broad effort to bury stories that might have damaged his first White House bid.
"We'll never know if this effort to hoodwink the American voter impacted the election, but that's something we don't need to prove."
Jurors could begin deliberating as soon as Wednesday in the first criminal trial of a US president.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents to cover up the payment to Daniels. He has pleaded not guilty, denies ever having sex with her and appeared to be unimpressed with Steinglass's closing argument.
"BORING!" the 77-year-old wrote on social media during a break.
Earlier in the day Trump's lawyer told jurors they should not trust star witness Michael Cohen, who testified that as Trump's fixer he paid Daniels out of his own pocket and worked out a plan with Trump to be reimbursed through payments disguised as legal fees.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said Cohen, a convicted felon with a long track record of lying, had misled jurors when he said he discussed the payment and the reimbursement plan with Trump.
"He is literally the greatest liar of all time," Blanche said.
Steinglass countered that Cohen's dishonesty was a reflection of Trump's malign influence.
“Mr Trump not only corrupted those around him. He also got them to lie to cover it up,” Steinglass said.
Blanche urged jurors to set aside their personal views of Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, and determine whether prosecutors had proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard required by United States law.
“If you focus just on that evidence you heard in this courtroom, this is a very, very quick-and-easy not guilty verdict," Blanche said.
If found guilty, Trump faces up to four years in prison, although imprisonment is unlikely for a first-time felon convicted of such a crime.
A conviction will not prevent Trump from trying to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 5 election. Nor will it prevent him from taking office if he wins. Opinion polls show the two men locked in a tight race.
A VICTIM OF BLACKMAIL?
Blanche said Daniels sought to blackmail Trump by threatening to go public with her story as he battled a string of unflattering stories of sexual misconduct in the final weeks of the 2016 election.
The defence has argued he approved the hush money payment to spare his family the embarrassment.
Steinglass said it was no coincidence the payoff took place two weeks before the election. "That's because the defendant's primary concern was not his family, but the election."
It was irrelevant if Daniels was seeking a payday, because Trump broke the law by covering up the hush money payment, he said.
"You don’t get to commit election fraud or falsify business records because you think you’ve been victimised."
Had she gone public, Daniels could have undercut Trump's argument that he treated women with respect despite his crude sexual comments captured on audio from the Access Hollywood TV show that were broadcast in the final days of the 2016 campaign, Steinglass said.
"She would have totally undermined his strategy for spinning away the Access Hollywood tape," he said.
Blanche drew a reprimand from the judge overseeing the trial for telling jurors the evidence was insufficient to send Trump to prison. Jurors are tasked with assessing guilt or innocence while judges determine punishment of those found guilty.
Justice Juan Merchan told jurors after they returned from lunch to ignore that statement. "That comment was improper and you must disregard it," he said before prosecutors began their closing argument.
The charges brought against Trump are misdemeanours on their own but prosecutors elevated them to felonies on the grounds that Trump was trying to cover up his unlawful efforts to promote his candidacy.
Blanche said prosecutors had not proven that there had been any underlying crime to cover up.
Trump faces three other criminal prosecutions as well, but none is likely to go to trial before this year's election.
He has pleaded not guilty in all of the cases and called them an effort by Biden's Democratic allies to hobble his presidential bid.
