Trump New York judg­ment nears as judge pre­pares jury instruc­tions

NEW YORK — The legal frame­work that a Man­hat­tan jury will use to eval­u­ate the charges against for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump will be unveiled by Judge Juan Mer­chan on Wednes­day.
The long-antic­i­pat­ed jury instruc­tions will come near­ly a week lat­er than ini­tial­ly sched­uled, amid wide­spread spec­u­la­tion about the pre­cise legal cri­te­ria the jury will con­sid­er in assess­ing the charges of fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records in the first degree against Trump.
Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg, an elect­ed Demo­c­rat, has charged Trump with 34 counts of fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records in the first degree, to which Trump has plead­ed not guilty. The jury instruc­tions are set to fol­low a day of clos­ing argu­ments from both the pros­e­cu­tion and defense.
Pros­e­cu­tors need to prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt that Trump fal­si­fied records to hide a $130,000 pay­ment to porn star Stormy Daniels …