We will know within days, if not hours, whether it was truly a bad omen for Donald Trump, but legal experts said the series of questions asked by the jury in his hush-money trial suggest the prosecution's argument – that the former president engaged in a criminal conspiracy before and after the 2016 election – has 12 New Yorkers seriously pondering a conviction.
On Wednesday afternoon, the jury considering whether to find Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records submitted a note requesting to review four pieces of evidence: the testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker concerning a phone call he had with Trump, in which, according to Pecker, the former president named Michael Cohen as his point man; Pecker's discussion of Playboy model Karen McDougal and Cohen's efforts to buy her silence; and both Pecker and Cohen's accounts of a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower where the Republican candidate, they say, agreed to a catch-and-kill scheme to keep damaging stories out of the press.
"These requests for testimony track the road map prosecutors gave jurors for deciding if Michael Cohen could be believed," noted Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney who has been tracking the case. "It's dangerous to read the tea leaves, but it's a cautiously optimistic sign that jurors are working through the evidence in ways that the government proposed."
It could also mean a juror has doubts about Cohen and that others are seeking to highlight testimony that corroborates his claims, Vance wrote on her website. Another jury question, about the instructions given to them by Judge Juan Merchan, points to how complicated the case is, Vance noted, suggesting it may have to do with how state law requires a conviction be based on more than just the claims of an accomplice (like Cohen).
MSNBC's Ari Melber noted that the defense never really went after Pecker, who directly connected Trump to the conspiracy alleged by the prosecution to kill negative stories and evade campaign finance laws.
"I never heard anyone really undercut his points," Melber said. Pecker's testimony, per Melber, was effectively: "We're going to try and help the [Trump] campaign. We're going to keep it as quiet as possible. I want it confidential. Is that bad?"
Former federal prosecutor Kristy Greenberg, posting on social media, agreed that it "was a good day for Trump's prosecutors: the jury has requested the evidence that [Assistant District Attorney Joshua] Steinglass told them in his closing to focus on that proves the election law conspiracy."
She continued: "Steinglass referred to the August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower as 'really the prism through which you should analyze the evidence in this case,' the 'meeting that hatched the election law conspiracy,' and evidence of Trump’s direct involvement in the election conspiracy."
While time will tell what it all means, and soon, Trump himself is acting as if he expects a guilty verdict. George Conway, a conservative attorney and one of his harshest critics, said the jury's questions suggest Trump's right to fear a conviction.
"If I were in the DA's office," commented conservative attorney George Conway, "I'd be giddily bounding off the walls right now."
