The final countdown: How Trump’s historic hush money trial will come to an end

A verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money trial could arrive as soon as Wednesday.

Closing arguments in theformer president’s criminal trial in Manhattan begin on Tuesday, and Manhattan prosecutors and Mr Trump’s defense team are expected to spend the day delivering their final statements to the jury before deliberations begin.

Then, after 16 days of testimony from 22 witnesses spread out over five weeks, a group of 12 jurors in Manhattan will determine whether Mr Trump is guilty of falsifying business records as part of a conspiracy to corruptly influence the 2016 presidential election.

Jurors will review dozens of documents, including emails, text messages, encrypted chats and the allegedly false documents at the center of the case.

Those include company ledger entries, invoices and checks that form the paper trail of Mr Trump’s reimbursement payments to his former attorney Michael Cohen, who paid $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels weeks before Election Day so she wouldn’t go public with a story about having sex with Mr Trump.

On Sunday, near the end of his six-day break between trial dates, the former president once again lashed out at the judge and the chief prosecutor leading the case against him.

Lawyers for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office won’t be presenting new evidence when they wrap up their case on Tuesday, but it’s their one last shot to drive home their narrative and remind jurors what the case is all about.

In his opening statement last month, assistant district attorney Matthew Colangelo argued that Mr Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” and then “covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his business records, over and over and over again.”