“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,” Manhattan senior attorney general Alvin Bragg said.
Trump was charged last Thursday in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He is the first ex-president in US history to face criminal prosecution. The indictment, which has been kept secret until now, has now been made public.
Prosecutor Bragg said Trump falsified business records to cover up other crimes, including violating campaign finance laws. The 34 charges relate to the alleged forgery of various documents.
“These are crimes in the state of New York,” prosecutor Bragg said at a press conference. “It doesn’t matter who someone is. We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal behavior.” Before the law, everyone is equal.
The investigation had focused on a hush money payment from Trump’s then confidante Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump in 2006. The hush money payment itself is not illegal. However, the repayment of the money to Cohen by Trump’s real estate empire was incorrectly booked as legal fees in numerous tranches.
Falsifying business documents is a New York City offense carrying a maximum sentence of one year in prison. If the forgery was committed to cover up another crime, as prosecutors argue, it is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Stormy Daniels was not the only one who received hush money before the 2016 presidential election. There were two other similar payments.
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said after the court hearing that the prosecution was “sad”. “We will fight them, we will fight them hard.”
Trump himself wrote on the online platform Truth Social that the court hearing was “shocking”. “Nothing was done illegally!” The right-wing populist, who wants to run again in the 2024 presidential election, wanted to give a speech on Tuesday evening (8:15 p.m. local time; Wednesday 2:15 a.m. CEST) after his return to his private residence Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida.
Trump faced the New York judiciary on Tuesday. The ex-president was driven from his skyscraper Trump Tower on the famous Fifth Avenue to the responsible criminal court in Lower Manhattan. After the identification service by the public prosecutor’s office, he entered the courtroom with a serious expression. As expected, he was not wearing handcuffs.
The historic court hearing had been eagerly awaited and attracted huge media interest. Both supporters and opponents of Trump gathered in front of the courthouse in Manhattan. The authorities had taken strict security measures in view of fears of riots.
The ex-president is not only in the sights of the judiciary in the Stormy Daniels affair. Investigations are underway in southern Georgia into a possible attempt to illegally influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. A US special investigator is also investigating Trump’s responsibility for the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the taking of numerous secret documents from the White House to his private property Mar-a-Lago after the end of the Republican term.
