The dramatic moments of the Trump trial the jury will now consider: From that night in a hotel with Stormy Daniels to Hope Hicks' tears and Michael Cohen's bombshell admission

Stormy Daniels said it was the words of her publicist that convinced her to accept a dinner invitation from Donald Trump.

'Like, what could possibly go wrong?' she said, triggering titters around the court.

Some 18 years later, a jury must now decide whether or not that set in train a series of events that led a future president to falsify business documents in order to hide a $130,000 hush money payment as part of an effort to win the 2016 election.

Along the way, jurors heard Daniels' story of having sex with a man more than 30 years her senior, about how a tabloid sleaze-monger offered his help to the 2016 Trump campaign, and how it all ended with Trump signing checks for his trusty fixer in the White House.

But prosecutors did not have it all their own way. The seven men and five women of the jury must also weigh the fact that Michael Cohen, the star witness connecting Trump to the falsified documents, admitted stealing from his former boss.

This is the key testimony:

Daniels: The sex was brief

Stormy Daniels with Donald Trump in 2006, at the time of the alleged affair

Daniels is well practised in telling her story, and recounted the details of her alleged affair with Trump with a mix of jokes and knowing asides.

Her testimony was riddled with juicy details, some so explicit that the judge cut her off as she described a hotel encounter with the then Apprentice star. And the defense said he words were likely to prejudice the jury against their client.

Although Judge Juan Merchan rejected their application for a mistrial, he did say that some details of her evidence would have been 'better left unsaid.'

She described how she had met Trump briefly at a celebrity golf tournament before receiving an invitation to join him later that evening at his Lake Tahoe hotel.

And she recalled in detail the black-and-white tile floor and the big mahogany table in the center of the foyer of his suite, where they discussed the economics of the adult film industry and its policies on STD testing while she wondered if dinner was ever going to arrive.

She said she went to the bathroom (where she rooted around in his washbag) before emerging to find Trump stripped down to his underwear in a provocative pose on the bed. (She even acted out the way he was spreadeagled, putting her arm behind her head and raising one leg in the air.) 

'The next thing I know, I was on the bed, somehow on the opposite side of the bed from where we had been standing. I had my clothes and shoes off,' she said.

'I believe my bra, however, was still on. We were in the missionary position.'

At one point Stormy Daniels flashed a little calf and leant back, hand behind her head, as she demonstrated how she said Donald Trump reclined on a hotel bed in 2006

Daniels leaving court after giving evidence in the hush money trial of Donald Trump

Trump denies 34 felony counts of falsifying documents relating to a non-disclosure agreement

The was as far as she got before the judge moved her away from mentioning anything even more explicit. 

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked: 'Was it brief?'

'Yes,' she answered. 

Her testimony was filled with salacious headlines, even though the judge limited discussion of the sex itself. 

And the defense worked hard to suggest that it was all the result of an overactive imagination and a mind that makes up porn movie storylines for a living.

National Enquirer publisher's offer of help

Pecker testified that he had been friends with Trump for decades, and had helped stamp out negative stories during the 2016 election after a key meeting at Trump Tower

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker wore a dark gray suit, with blue shirt and pink tie when he appeared for his first day of testimony about the workings of the tabloid world

How the National Enquirer helped the Trump campaign by hitting rival candidates

The first witness was supermarket tabloid king David Pecker, who offered a close-up tour of the seedier side of the media world.

He described a 2015 Trump Tower meeting at which he offered to be the eyes and ears of the campaign.  

'I said that anything I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen,' he said, adding  that the rights could then be purchased and the stories could be buried.

'So they would not get published?' asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.

'So they would not get published,' Pecker answered.

He even described how Cohen would direct coverage, suggesting which rival candidates to attack and offering storylines.

The prosecution's case is that Trump falsified documents in order to keep damaging information from voters ahead of the election, raising the charges from misdemeanors to felonies. Pecker's testimony, that the plan was hatched around the time the campaign launched, helps bolster that idea.

Hope Hicks' tears on the stand 

Hope Hicks broke down at the end of her testimony and the judge called for a brief break

Hope Hicks arrived in the courtroom looking fragile. The former Trump aide looking as if she was concentrating on breathing in and breathing out.

'I'm really nervous,' she admitted as the questioning began.

Hicks, 35, was with Trump through the 2016 campaign and followed him to the White House. It gave her a ringside seat through some of the key moments at issue.

In particular, she described the release of the Access Hollywood tape—in which Trump was heard bragging about grabbing women's genitals, because 'when you’re a star, they let you do it'—about a month before election day.

The jury saw a flurry of messages about how the campaign would handle its release.

'I think there was consensus among us all that the tape was damaging and this was a crisis,' said Hicks.

The prosecution aimed to show that the unguarded comments raised worries that Trump would lose support among women in particular, and increased the impetus for Daniels to be silenced.

Hicks came across as a loyal aide, who still held her former boss in high regard. 

Trump and Hicks in happier times, seen here outside the Oval Office as they leave for Cleveland, Ohio, on March 29, 2018

The strain became evident as the cross-examination by Emil Bove began.

'Sorry,' she said, her voice choking and the tears beginning to flow. 'Could I just have a moment?'

Later the cross-examination offered something for the defense, when she described how Trump tried to keep the story of another alleged affair (this time with Playboy model Karen McDougal) from his family. 

'He was concerned about the story. He was concerned how it would be viewed by his wife,' she said. 'And he wanted me to make sure that the newspapers weren't delivered to their residence that morning.'

Part of Trump's defense is that he was motivated not by trying to win the election, but by keeping damaging stories from harming his family. 

The Access Hollywood tape triggered interest

Daniels had been shopping her story for years. She described renewed interest in Oct 2016

Much of Daniels testimony was titillating but not necessarily relevant to the main claims of the prosecution case, which is based on invoices, ledger entries and checks.

However, she was able to offer evidence that the Trump campaign may have been motivated by the election rather than any family embarrassment.

She said that her then-publicist Gina Rodriguez had failed to find a buyer for her story in 2015 when Trump began running for president.

That changed after the Access Hollywood tape of Trump was released. 

'More people were calling,' said Daniels.

The jury was not allowed to listen the audio of the recording. But a transcript was read in court. 

Michael Cohen joined the dots

Michael Cohen delivered the key link between Trump himself and the hush money scheme

Trump and Cohen in happier times, pictured in 2011 during a visit to New Hampshire amid intense speculation that the New York property mogul was about to enter politics

Much of the evidence presented was circumstantial in nature. Cohen's evidence is crucial to the prosecution in linking Trump directly to the falsified documents and the plan to kill Daniels' story.

He said that he paid Daniels the $130,000 before being reimbursed in monthly instalments that were mischaracterized as legal expenses—the 34 charges representing invoices, ledger vouchers and checks) that the jurors must weigh.

He testified that Trump directed him to silence Daniels.

'Just take care of it,' he said the then Republican candidate told him.

But he also said that he had gone with Trump Organisation Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to meet with their boss in January 2017 to show him how they planned to reimburse him. 

Trump was just days away from being sworn in as the 45th president. 

'He approved it and then said: "It's going to be one heck of a ride in D.C.,"' said Cohen.

But he is a compromised witness 

When Cohen admitted stealing from the Trump Organisation, his former boss shook his head

Many witnesses have credibility issues. Few have served prison time for lying.

Cohen is a more problematic witness than most. He is a disbarred lawyer, who served 13 months in prison for tax fraud and lying to Congress among other crimes.  

And for two years he denied that Trump was involved in the hush money scheme.

As a result, the defense did its best to undermine his credibility and destroy his position as the lynchpin of the prosecution case.

As part of the reimbursement scheme, Cohen said he had been repaid for money he paid to a tech company that was hired to rig an online poll. He described how Red Finch was owed $50,000, but he used $20,000 of his own money (in a brown paper bag) to try to placate its owner. 

When it came time to be reimbursed, he let Weisselberg add the full $50,000 (doubled to $100,000 for tax reasons) to the tally.

Trump shook his head as Cohen admitted theft. 

The witness said he was angry at the way his bonus had been reduced. 

'I just felt it was almost like self-help. I wasn’t going to let him have the benefit ... this way as well,' he said.

'I had not only protected him to the best that I could, but I had also laid out money to Red Finch a year and a half earlier and again $130,000 to have my bonus cut by two-thirds was very upsetting to say the least.'

Now the jury must decide whether they believe his testimony that he kept Trump abreast of the hush money negotiations.

Or is he a money-grabbing huckster intent on destroying his former boss?