WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is expected to be pulled from the campaign trail for at least two months starting next week as he stands trial in New York, the first criminal prosecution of a former president in American history.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records in an attempt to hide money paid to an adult film actor to prevent her from going public with claims that she and Trump had sex.
It is the only one of the four felony cases Trump currently faces that has a trial date and could be the only one that is completed before election day. Jury selection begins April 15.
What are the charges?
The trial is over whether Trump falsified business records to cover up a $130,000 payment his lawyer Michael Cohen made in the final days of the 2016 campaign to adult film actor Stormy Daniels for her silence about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump. He has pleaded not guilty. Trump also denies Daniels’ claim of a sexual encounter.
According to the New York indictment, Trump sent Cohen $420,000 in a dozen installments during his first months as president in 2017 and falsely recorded the payments in Trump Organization internal documents as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. That amount includes $130,000 as reimbursement for paying Daniels and additional funds for Cohen.
Prosecutors say there were no legal expenses or retainer agreement at the time.
The key thing Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg must prove to jurors is that Trump instructed Cohen to make the payment to Daniels in an effort to influence the 2016 election by keeping damaging stories about him from being published.
Trump has said he sought to silence Daniels to keep his wife, Melania Trump, from learning about the allegations.
Does Trump have to be at the trial in person?
Yes. Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan has said he expects Trump in the courtroom every day the court is in session. The trial will take place Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for about six to eight weeks.
Trump is under a gag order prohibiting him from making or directing others to make public statements regarding counsel and court staff in the case.
Merchan last week expanded his gag order to stop the former president from attacking family members of the judge, attorneys and staff involved in the case after Trump shared a barrage of social media posts about the judge’s daughter, claiming that her past work for Democratic clients makes her father biased.
Trump said Saturday on social media that going to jail for violating his gag order would be his “great honor.”
“If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the ‘clink’ for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela,” Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post.
Merchan has not threatened to jail the former president for disregarding the gag order. Rather, Trump could lose access to the names of jurors, Merchan said, “if he engages in any conduct that threatens the safety and integrity of the jury or the jury selection process.” That would prevent Trump’s legal team from researching the jurors’ public stances or political preferences ahead of the trial. Merchan has already ordered juror names to be kept from the public.
What punishment does Trump face?
All 34 charges are Class E felonies, the lowest category of felonies in New York. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of four years.
Merchan has indicated that he takes white-collar crime seriously and could put Trump in prison, potentially to serve his terms concurrently if the former president is convicted of more than one count. Merchan could also instead sentence Trump to probation.
What will it mean politically?
Trump will be limited to campaigning only on weekends, evenings and Wednesdays for the length of the trial.
The verdict could come in late June or early July, just before Trump accepts his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July.
During the Republican primary campaign, Trump used his four indictments to his advantage, portraying himself as a victim of politicized justice and effectively squeezing out his rivals. Whether that narrative holds when Americans see photos of him in a courtroom day after day is unknown.
Three polls conducted last year by the Associated Press and NORC asked respondents how they viewed the legality of Trump’s actions in the four indictments against him. Only one third of respondents said they thought the hush money payment was illegally covered up.
Who will testify?
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and longtime fixer, is expected to be prosecutors’ main witness. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations related to facilitating payoffs to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, as well as to other crimes. He served more than a year in prison.
Daniels could also be called to testify along with McDougal, who in 2018 told CNN that she had a 10-month extramarital affair with Trump that began in 2006. Trump also denies this affair occurred.
McDougal was paid $150,000 by American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, in August 2016 for the rights to her story about the alleged affair. The payment to McDougal and a $30,000 payment by the company to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock with an employee, are not part of the case but are expected to be introduced by Bragg to show the breadth of the alleged scheme to influence the 2016 election.
American Media Inc. signed a nonprosecution agreement with the Justice Department in which it admitted paying McDougal to avoid her going public about her alleged affair and influencing the 2016 election. David Pecker, the Enquirer’s publisher, could be called to testify.
Former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who was Trump’s campaign press secretary in 2016, could also testify for the prosecution, potentially related to conversations about what Daniels’ claims could do to the campaign.
These are felony charges?
In New York, falsifying business records can be a misdemeanor or can be elevated to a felony if prosecutors prove that the records were falsified in an attempt to conceal another crime.
Bragg has accused Trump of concealing three crimes: a federal campaign finance violation, a state election-law crime and tax fraud. Bragg does not have to charge Trump with those crimes, or even prove those crimes occurred. He just has to prove there was intent to commit or conceal a second crime.
What about the other charges against Trump?
Trump has been indicted in three other criminal cases.
The federal case charging him with subverting the 2020 presidential election is on hold pending a Supreme Court decision on whether Trump can claim presidential immunity for acts taken while in office and avoid prosecution. The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on April 25. It is expected to wait until the end of June to hand down a written ruling, though it could rule at any time after the oral argument.
The Florida-based federal case accusing Trump of refusing to return classified documents he took when leaving the White House also does not have a trial date. Trump asked for an August trial or a delay until after the election, while prosecutors asked for it to begin in July, soon after the Supreme Court is expected to rule on presidential immunity.
The state-level case in Georgia, in which Trump is accused of scheming to overturn the 2020 election, has been delayed for weeks by an effort by Trump and his co-defendants to remove Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis from the case because of a romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee recently ruled that either Willis or Wade had to step away from the case, and Wade resigned. Trump’s attorneys have appealed the decision, and a trial date still hasn’t been set.
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