Donald Trump silences his financial lawsuit, explained

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Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to go on trial this month in Manhattan for his alleged role in a hush money scheme to silence his alleged mistresses before the 2016 election.

It will be historic; no former US president has ever been criminally prosecuted.

It will be salacious; the alleged mistresses are a former adult film actress and a Playboy model.

Even though it features the former president, who denies any wrongdoing, it may or may not be the trial of the century. Trump still faces three other criminal trials in federal court and in Georgia for arguably more serious crimes of election interference, conspiracy and mishandling of classified documents after he leaves the White House.

All these lawsuits and the characters involved create a complicated legal mess, especially when the four criminal cases add up to Trump's civil liability for defamation, sexual misconduct and business fraud.

Here's what you need to know to be aware of this first criminal trial:

Two women who said they had relationships with Trump years before he ran for president received six-figure sums in the months leading up to the 2016 election.

The first woman, Karen McDougal, a Playboy model, received $150,000 from the National Enquirers' parent company, American Media Inc., for the rights to her story. AMI quickly did nothing with this story. This is a process known as catch and kill.

AMI also paid to catch and kill a former Trump Tower doorman, claiming Trump had an unacknowledged child, but this allegation has never been corroborated by any reports. Trump's friend David Pecker, who was then CEO of AMI, accepted the payments.

Karen McDougal and the “catch and kill” system

The second woman, born Stephanie Clifford but who built a career in the adult film industry under the name Stormy Daniels, was paid $130,000 by former Trump fixer Michael Cohen to sign a non-disclosure of his meetings with Trump. Cohen obtained a line of credit on his house to make the payment just before the election.

The Trump campaign was particularly concerned about allegations of sexual misconduct in the final days of the 2016 election, as the release of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump described grabbing women by the genitals, dominated media coverage.

After the election, the Trump Company reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels.

How were these payments and the alleged affairs revealed?

The Wall Street Journal actually reported on AMI's capture and kill program and indicated that Daniels was in talks to share his story days before Election Day 2016. McDougal and Daniels shared the same lawyer.

But things didn't really explode until January 2018, when the Journal reported on payments Cohen made to Daniels.

Yes. Both Cohen and AMI admitted to breaking the law.

Cohen pleaded guilty to two campaign finance charges in August 2018: making an illegal campaign contribution for his involvement in orchestrating AMI's payment to McDougal, and making an excessive campaign contribution for the payment to Daniels.

AMI, now known as a360media, was not criminally charged by federal authorities but admitted to making the payment to McDougal. The company paid a $187,500 fine to the Federal Election Commission for making an illegal campaign contribution.

Cohen recorded at least one conversation with Trump that appears to concern the payment to Daniels, in which they are heard discussing whether to make the payment in cash.

Cohen also testified before the grand jury that indicted Trump. In 2018, Trump initially denied knowledge of the payments, but later admitted in a carefully worded tweet that he had made them to Cohen. Trump maintained they had nothing to do with the campaign.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced a grand jury indictment of Trump in April 2023, accusing the former president of falsifying business records in New York to conceal damaging information and illegal activities to American voters before and after the 2016 elections.

Technically, Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a class E felony. Trump was charged with a felony because prosecutors accused him of falsifying business records with the intent to commit or cover up another crime related to his 2016 campaign.

This is the least serious type of crime in New York, meaning that if Trump is convicted, the judge could sentence him to probation or up to four years in state prison on each count. 'charge.

It's a long and sordid story, and the contents of this reminder only scratch the surface.

The payments are almost irrelevant, but the question arises whether the alleged affairs took place. Trump denies this happened. But both women, who have very similar stories, say they had sex with Trump in 2006. Both saw him at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Both said they visited him in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Stormy Daniels: “I have no reason to lie”

It took a long time to put this file together. Trump was not charged by federal investigators who went after Cohen. It took years for the Manhattan DA to finally present the case to a grand jury. Now, this could theoretically become the only one of four criminal cases against Trump to go to trial before the November election in which he tries to win back the White House.

There will be drama in the courtroom. The judge in the financial silence case, Juan Merchan, extended the silence order against Trump after the former president attacked Merchan's daughter on social media. Trump, however, will likely still find a way to campaign outside the courtroom, attacking New York authorities such as Bragg.

It's a Shakespearean drama. Cohen went from being Trump's fixer to being his enemy. Daniel's former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who was once a TV staple, is now in federal prison for stealing his clients' money. And the witness list for this hush money case includes former Trump aides such as Hope Hicks.

McDougal has largely remained out of the public eye, but there is a documentary devoted entirely to Daniels.

In many ways, this affair feels like a throwback to an earlier era in American politics, when Trump was still the insurgent reality TV candidate and had not remade the entire Republican Party in his own populist image. That seems much smaller than the federal and Fulton County, Ga., cases that accuse him of trying to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election rather than hiding unflattering personal accusations before the 2016 election.

But these other cases are all slowed down. The Supreme Court is taking its time reviewing Trump's incredible claim that he should be exempt from any federal prosecution. A federal judge in Miami is considering Trump's delaying tactics in the classified documents case. And the Fulton County prosecutor faced accusations about his own private conduct. That's why this New York case concerning the money paid eight years ago is the one that will be tried first.

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