smoking gun

No smoking gun has surfaced to prove the alleged bribe actually occurred.

Vidal, repeating other historians’ assertions, pointed out this was “not necessarily, in those frontier days, the sign of a smoking gun — only messy male housekeeping.”

“There’s never a smoking gun, so to speak,” Mr. Pruchnicki said.

Still, one legal expert said that the defense team is likely to argue there's no smoking gun yet that undoubtedly shows Trump knew about the scheme to falsify the records.

Other prosecution key witnesses so far include former Trump aide Hope Hicks, who Rahmani said didn’t have a “smoking gun” but testified to corroborate Trump’s involvement in day-to-day campaign matters.