Today is Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Today both the prosecution and the defense rested in Donald Duck’s election interference trial, sending it to the jury who will most probably deliberate over the fate of the former president sometime after Memorial Day. It has now been reported that the judge overseeing the case, Judge Juan Merchan, made a decision about jury instructions this afternoon that could land Manhattan prosecutors a major win in the trial of the former insurrectionist, one legal analyst and former prosecutor argued on CNN. This possible win for the country is reported in a RawStory article by Sarah K. Burns entitled ‘Huge win for prosecution’: Legal expert reveals key ruling in Trump’s hush money trial.”

As both the prosecution and the defense wrapped up their cases today, the debate over jury instructions and closing statements was waged by both sides.

Former federal prosecutor Shan Wu said on CNN this evening that Merchan delivered Bragg and his team of prosecutors a “huge win” by allowing broad instructions to the jury.

Wu said, “The jury instruction on this point is so critical.” He added, “It’s possible the judge may do a special verdict, meaning checkbox, which of these crimes, tax, election fraud, federal election campaign finance can the defendant be convicted of. The more broad the instructions from the judge, the easier it is for them to make that connection evidentiary.”

Another aspect of the trial anyone could have bet on and that was that the defendant himself, Donald J. Chump, did not take the stand on his behalf. Anyone with a brain would have expected that he would have not testified in his own trial; it would have been a total disaster if he had.

Bolstering the contention from this former federal prosecutor that Bragg’s team excelled in its delivery of the facts revolving around the criminal activities of the former president is another former Manhattan district attorney and current New York Law School professor who told The New Republic’s Gregg Sargent that she believes prosecutors have almost clinched their case against Donald Chump. Her name is Rebecca Roiphe and she appeared on Sargent’s Daily Beast podcast where she undermined the defense’s claim that Michael Cohen might have been acting on his own without the knowledge of his former boss as to what he was doing.

Roiphe noted that prosecutors have been using former Trump “fixer” Cohen’s testimony to simply underline the documentary evidence that they have obtained showing “micromanager” Drumpf’s awareness of the scheme to falsify records.

All of this leads Roiphe to believe that Bragg’s team is in a good position heading into closing arguments.

The former Manhattan district attorney said, “I think they’re very close. I think what they have to do is present their final argument to the jury in a way and in the same order that they built the case . . . which is to start with their strongest pieces of evidence, which are documents, and then to build from there.”

Since this is the only trial we might get of the former president before Election Day 2024, it’s crucial that a verdict come in rather soon that leaves no question that the former insurrectionist committed malfeasance.

It’s late here because I decided to attend another Trivia Contest at a different venue, this time at the Forest Hills Station House, that began at 7. This is a gastropub that offers craft beers and lots of whiskey options, plus an upscale bar menu and weekend brunch.

I wanted to try out a different venue this time because I’ve already missed several Thursdays at the first venue, Rove Restaurant. I’m actually going to miss the trivia night at Rove this coming Thursday because Elliot and I are going up to Elliot’s former bungalow colony to dog sit for Elliot’s good friend and former bungalow occupant, “Serena,” who lives there year-round, and is attending a wedding on Friday night and returning on Saturday. I don’t know much about her dog other than his name is Baxter and he’s some sort of cocker spaniel. I hope everything goes well when we’re with him at the end of the week. If everything goes well, we can make side trips in the Catskills, possibly driving to New Paltz, which is not far from the site. There are two bookstores located right opposite one another in New Paltz, so we could go there if they’re open. The weather is supposed to be warm for Thursday and Friday, I believe, so that’s a positive note. Except that it might rain on Thursday.

Tomorrow then will be my last blog before Sunday if everything proceeds as planned.

As for participating in this new trivia night, I can say that it was certainly more high-tech. You had to scan a code with your smartphone and the questions were shown on a television screen. One person was entrusted with answering the questions on his phone: there were no sheets to fill out. Here there were five rounds, with one round consisting of listening to music and another drawing upon pictures. The entire event took two hours. For me, the quality of the questions was quite difficult. I bombed on the music section; I knew, basically, one question that referred to 70s brother-sister duo the Carpenters. And the question was what was the relationship between Karen and Richard Carpenter. Were they a married couple, brother and sister, father and daughter, or cousins? I knew with no incertitude that they were indeed siblings. With this game, you didn’t lose any points if you failed to answer a question. So there were definitely some questions that we left blank. Don’t ask me which ones we avoided answering. I couldn’t take a picture of the questions as they appeared quickly on screen. The other music question that I fumbled was guessing how crooner Nat King Cole died, which was a strange question, in my opinion. I told my teammates that he died in an automobile accident. Nope! He died of natural causes of lung cancer. My teammates, since they were much younger than I, knew the music category much better than I did. However, I did know the answer to one that referred to the musical biopic of the rock band Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, which asked what star played an agent in the film. For some reason, I knew the answer to be Mike Myers.

Despite our ignorance of the answers to some questions, we came in second place. For our efforts, we won a four-pack of beer, which I left to my other younger contest mates. I didn’t even order a drink as I participated in the trivia game. But I did order onion rings as a side dish.

Stay safe and be well.