Prosecution: Trump hush money case "cloaked in lies"

The big picture: The first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president is near conclusion after hours of closing arguments, with prosecutor Joshua Steinglass ending his summation about 8pm ET after nearly five hours.

• The case — over whether Trump's alleged hush money payment to a porn star was an illegal campaign contribution in 2016 — should be in the jury's hands on Wednesday.
• Judge Juan Merchan adjourned the case until 10am Wednesday and said he would give the jury instructions before they start deliberating, per CNN.

State of play: Per the New York Times and others, Steinglass said toward the end of his mammoth summation: "Everything Mr. Trump and his cohorts did in this case was cloaked in lies. The name of the game was concealment, and all roads lead to the man who benefited the most, Donald Trump."

• Lawyers for the former president earlier hammered Cohen, arguing that jurors cannot convict the former president based on his "lies."
• The prosecution, meanwhile, sought to re-center the focus of the case on Trump, telling jurors that Cohen is "like a tour guide through the physical evidence, but those documents don't lie and they don't forget."
• Ultimately, how believable the jurors find Cohen's testimony could determine whether Trump is convicted.
• The arguments cap off five weeks of testimony, with Trump facing charges of falsifying business records to obscure an alleged hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Zoom in: In their final pitch to jurors, the defense tried to undercut Cohen's testimony to sow doubt about his credibility. Trump's team maintained its claim that the former president never committed a crime and argued that the reimbursements for Cohen were for legal work.

• Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche said there was "not a shred of evidence" that the former president falsified business records in connection with Cohen's reimbursements, per the New York Times.
• "[Cohen's] the human embodiment of reasonable doubt, literally," Blanche argued, per the Washington Post. "He lied to you repeatedly, he lied many, many times before you even met him."
• Blanche repeatedly zeroed in on Cohen's credibility: "He's literally like an MVP of liars," he said, per CNN.

The prosecutors, delivering their closing arguments second, argued that "there's literally a mountain of evidence of corroborating" Cohen's testimony.

• "It's difficult to conceive of a case with more corroboration than this one," Steinglass said.
• "This case is not about Michael Cohen," Steinglass told the jurors.
• "It's about Mr. Trump and whether he should be held accountable for making false business entries in his own business records. Whether he and his staff did that to cover up election interference."
• The prosecutor said Cohen's "significance in this case is that he provides context and color to the documents, the phone records," according to CNN.

Blanche also took aim at other aspects of the prosecution's case, including criticizing them for calling adult film actress Stormy Daniels to the witness stand, saying "they did it to try to embarrass President Trump."

• He also argued that Trump was not worried that Daniels' story would hurt him in the 2016 election.

What's next: The country will soon find out whether Trump, who is campaigning for a second White House term, is a convicted felon or free from his 34 felony charges in the only trial against him likely to conclude before voters head to the polls.

• If the 12-person jury can't reach a unanimous decision, the trial could also end with a mistrial.

Go deeper: Defense rests without Trump testimony in hush money case

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.