The indictment is about a hush money payment of $ 130,000 (around 120,000 euros) to the porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. The porn star, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims to have had an affair with the married Trump in 2006, which he denies. The hush money was intended to prevent the 44-year-old from going public, which could have done massive damage to Trump in the final spurt of the 2016 election campaign.
The sum was paid by Trump’s lawyer and cleaner at the time, Michael Cohen. Cohen later got the money back from Trump’s family holding company, the Trump Organization.
Trump has been charged with 34 counts of forging business documents in connection with paying the money to Cohen. Because the expenses to Cohen were incorrectly accounted for by the Trump Organization as legal fees. Trump signed nine of the checks to Cohen himself. The 34 charges may sound like a lot, but in the end they only refer to the number of allegedly forged documents.
According to prosecutors, the forgeries were committed to cover up other crimes, violating voting rights. This link turns counterfeiting from a misdemeanor carrying a maximum of one year in prison to a felony carrying a maximum prison sentence of four years.
“Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified business records in New York to conceal criminal conduct designed to conceal harmful information from voters during the 2016 presidential election,” said Manhattan Chief Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The indictment only deals with the Stormy Daniels case. However, prosecutors point to two other cases in which money flowed before the 2016 election to suppress potentially harmful information about Trump.
In one case, the media group American Media Inc. (AMI) of Trump friend David Pecker – then editor of the scandalous newspaper “National Enquirer” – paid $ 30,000 to a doorman who claimed that Trump had an illegitimate child. In the second case, AMI paid $150,000 to a woman who said she was having an affair with Trump. It is believed to be former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Attorney General Bragg said Trump, along with others, has been trying to “identify, buy, and bury negative information about him and improve his election chances” beginning in 2015. Those involved had hatched a “plan” for this. However, Trump was not charged with a “conspiracy”.
The indictment has caused some astonishment among legal experts, in particular the linking of allegations of fraud with allegations of illegal campaign financing. Trump has not been charged with voting rights violations.
Attorney General Bragg spoke at a press conference about violations of federal and New York state electoral laws. Federal electoral law is about exceeding the maximum allowable limit for campaign donations, while New York law is about the ban on conspiring “to promote a candidacy by illegal means.”
However, these elements do not appear in the indictment. “The prosecution doesn’t say what the second crime is, which I find completely incomprehensible,” former prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN. That could lead to “legal problems”. Law professor Ellen Yaroshefsky spoke to the AFP news agency of a potential “hurdle” for the prosecutor.
One of Trump’s lawyers, Jim Trusty, accused the prosecution of “legal gymnastics” on CNN. The public prosecutor’s office only resorted to allegations of voting rights in order to turn a misdemeanor into a crime and thus avoid the problem of statutes of limitations.
Judge Juan Merchan gave Trump’s attorneys until August 8 to submit all of their motions. Numerous appeals against the charges are expected. The public prosecutor’s office should then have until September 19 to react. Merchan plans to announce its decisions on the various applications on December 4th. However, such dates can still be postponed.
Merchan said the criminal trial against Trump could begin next January — just ahead of the start of the Republican primaries for the presidential nomination for the November 2024 election. Trump is currently leading polls on the potential Republican nominee field. Neither the indictment nor a possible conviction will prevent Trump from running for president.
