NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump, facing a possible verdict Thursday in his hush money trial, entered court with a small entourage that included his son Eric and advisers.

“Here we go again,” he told reporters in the hallway.

Mr. Trump spoke to his son at the front of the courtroom for under a minute.

Alina Habba, a legal aide for Mr. Trump, sat next to Eric Trump in the front row, and adviser Boris Epshteyn, a constant presence at the trial, sat in the second row.

In the hallway, the former president compared security around the trial to Fort Knox and read reviews of the trial from favorable conservative commentators.

“This is a very sad day for America,” he said. “I haven’t seen one legal scholar or expert in the law say that this case should have been filed.”

Jurors began deliberating Wednesday morning. They requested a read-back of testimony from former tabloid executive David Pecker and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Another note, sent Thursday, said jurors want to rehear the judge’s instructions of how to evaluate evidence through a portion that described the first count of the indictment.

Prosecutors allege Mr. Trump used his lawyer Michael Cohen to pay hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels near the 2016 election and criminally covered up the effort with a series of reimbursement checks to Mr. Cohen that were mislabeled to conceal a campaign-oriented conspiracy.

Paying hush money or engaging in a nondisclosure agreement is not illegal. Prosecutors said the records were falsified with an intent to hide another unidentified crime, perhaps an election or tax crime.

The other crime, which the judge plans to instruct jurors they don’t have to agree on to find Mr. Trump guilty, elevated the business record fraud from a misdemeanor to a felony.

Mr. Trump faces up to four years in prison if he’s convicted. He is unlikely to face that harsh of a sentence, however, given he would be a first-time, nonviolent offender.

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.