The people rest. Those were the three magic words that were said by the government when they finished putting in their case in chief, their entire case against Donald Trump, his adult children and others in the civil fraud case that's going on right now in New York State, which is the people of the state of New York, versus Donald Trump and others.

And this is a case, even though it's civil,

it's being brought by the people of the state of New York

by their duly elected attorney general, Letitia James,

having nothing to do with Joe Biden or the federal government.

This is an independently elected attorney general, highly respected in New York, and she has civil enforcement powers as well as some limited

criminal enforcement powers, but she has civil enforcement powers including executive law section 6312, which allows the attorney general to bring a case against individuals or businesses who conduct business in New York and engage in persistent or repeated fraud.

And that's essentially what has happened.

And as a litigator, as a prosecutor myself, doing criminal work, I remember it was so it was so

monumental to say that people rest because it just means you've put in your case, you feel that you have met each and every element of each and every offense, and that you can prove it for a prosecutor, it was beyond a reasonable doubt but in a civil case it's

by a propensity of the evidence which means it's more likely than not so it's 51% however you want to look at it, but a much easier standard.

And what happens at the end of the government's case or the people's case is you they the defense will and

here they signaled as much that the next thing they're going to do is move for

a directed verdict.

Now, what is a directed verdict?

And we've also heard them say that they'd move for a mistrial.

What's a mistrial?

And we've also heard motion for summary judgment.

There's been lots of dispositive conclusory motion

type requests in this case, and it can be complicated and hard to

understand for people who aren't lawyers or people who are lawyers who don't

necessarily practice in this field, what's the difference?

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