Trump’s hush money case has gone to the jury. What happens now?

NEW YORK (AP) — After nearly two dozen witnesses, 16 days of testimony and hours of lawyers’ closing arguments, it’s time for the jurors to have their say in Donald Trump’s hush money trial.

Jury deliberations began Wednesday in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president. The seven-man, five-woman panel is tasked with deciding whether Trump is guilty of any of 34 felony counts of falsifying his company’s records.

Prosecutors say Trump falsified the records to veil reimbursements to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen, who had paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign not to air her claim that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee has pleaded not guilty, denies any sexual interaction with Daniels and argues that the payments to Cohen were correctly designated as legal expenses in company records.

Now that the case has gone to the jury, here’s a look at how deliberations will work.

WHAT IS THE JURY DECIDING?

If the jury convicts Trump, it must unanimously find he created a false entry in his company’s records, or caused someone else to do so, and that he did so with the intent of violating or concealing a violation of a state law making it illegal for conspirators “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«READ MORE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> READ MORE </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Jury deliberations begin in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case </bsp-custom-headline>