On April 15, former US President Trump will face an unprecedented and historic trial in Manhattan as he is accused of planning and implementing a hush money scheme to cover up his affairs with two women on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. extramarital affair.
This is the first time in American history that a former president has faced criminal charges. At the same time, Trump will have to deal with three more serious criminal cases in federal court and Georgia after leaving office, involving election interference, conspiracy and improper handling of confidential documents. This article will give you an overview of the core points of this criminal trial: an overview of the
hush money case. Two women claimed to have had intimate relationships with Trump in the years before he ran for president and were each paid six figures to remain silent in the months leading up to the 2016 election.
Among them, former Playboy model Karen McDougall received $150,000 from American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, for the rights to her story. , and ami did not publicly report the matter. This operation method is called the "catch and kill" strategy.
ami also stepped in to block an unsubstantiated claim by a former Trump Tower security guard that Trump had an illegitimate child. Trump friend David Pecker, who was CEO of AMI at the time, approved the payment.
The other woman involved is Stephanie Clifford, known in the adult film industry as Stormy Daniels. Trump's former adviser Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement regarding her meetings with Trump. Cohen used a home line of credit to pay for the money before the election.
The campaign is particularly sensitive to sex scandals due to the uproar over an "Access Hollywood" tape in which Trump talked about disrespectful behavior towards women.
After the election, Trump-owned companies repaid Cohen for payments he made to Daniels. How
events surface. The Wall Street Journal first reported on AMI's "catch and kill" program, revealing that Daniels attempted to go public with her story days before the election. McDougall and Daniels share the same attorney.
Until January 2018, the Wall Street Journal further disclosed the details of Cohen’s payment of hush money to Daniels, and the incident broke out in full.
Is hush money illegal? Yes, both Cohen and Ami have admitted breaking the law.
In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations, one for helping orchestrate AMI's payment to McDougall that constituted an illegal campaign donation, and one for providing excessive campaign funds in connection with the payment to Daniels.
Although ami, now renamed a360media, has not been criminally prosecuted at the federal level, it has admitted to making payments to McDougal, resulting in a $187,500 fine to the Federal Election Commission to resolve illegal campaign contributions.
Trump’s knowledge of the payments. Cohen recorded at least one conversation that involved discussing how to pay Daniels, including whether to pay in cash.
In addition, Cohen also attended the grand jury testimony against Trump. In 2018, Trump first denied any knowledge of the payments, then admitted in a carefully worded tweet that he had paid Cohen but insisted the payments had nothing to do with the campaign.
What is Trump charged with. In April 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced a grand jury indictment against Trump, accusing him of falsifying New York business records before and after the 2016 election to conceal information that could negatively impact voters and its potential illegal activities.
From a legal perspective, Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, which is a Class E felony. Prosecutors believe he falsified records to cover up other crimes directly related to the 2016 campaign.
If Trump is found guilty, under New York state law, he could be sentenced to probation or up to four years in prison for each count. The case of
is complex and involves many areas. This is a long and controversial story, and the content mentioned in this article only touches the tip of the iceberg.
In addition to the payment itself, whether there is a real extramarital affair is also a focus of this case. Trump has vehemently denied the existence of those relationships, but both women who claimed to have had affairs with him said they had similar experiences with him in 2006 and even met at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe and visited a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The case had a long gestation period, and Trump himself was not directly charged during the initial federal investigation into Cohen. After several years, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office finally presented the case to a grand jury for consideration. At present, this trial is likely to become the only one of the four criminal cases facing Trump that is expected to be completed before the November 2024 election, just as Trump seeks to return to the White House.
There was no shortage of drama during the trial. For example, the judge in charge of the case, Juan Mercan, increased restrictions on Trump's speech because he attacked his daughter on social media. Still, Trump is likely to continue his attacks on New York judicial officials like Bragg outside of court.
This case is like a real-life Shakespeare play, in which the transformation of the characters' identities is eye-catching: Cohen went from a loyal defender of Trump to a member of the hostile camp; Daniels' former lawyer Michael Avenatti was a TV A frequent visitor to the industry, he is now behind bars for misappropriating client funds. The list of witnesses involved in the case includes former Trump aide Hope Hicks and others.
McDougall has remained relatively low in the public eye, while Daniels has been the subject of a documentary.
In some ways, the case seems to be a throwback to the days when Trump was a rebel reality-show star candidate who had yet to reshape the entire Republican Party with his populist image. The hush-money case surrounding a personal scandal leading up to the 2016 election appears relatively minor compared to federal and Fulton County, Georgia, cases alleging that it attempted to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Other cases are moving slowly, however, with the Supreme Court considering Trump's stunning claim to immunity from all federal prosecution, a Miami federal judge reviewing his delaying tactics in the classified documents case, and Fulton County da having to respond. Questions about his own private conduct. It is against this background that this hush money case that began eight years ago became the first case to enter the trial stage.
