Is Trump's trial really about hush money?

As former President Donald Trump's first criminal trial begins, a battle is unfolding in a Manhattan courtroom, where he faces 34 counts of falsifying business records.

But there is another fight taking place in the court of public opinion, which concerns a much more fundamental question: What should this trial be called?

Many media outlets, including the New York Times, used the secret trial as a shortcut for the proceedings. It's a nod to the fact that Trump is accused of ordering bribes, then falsifying business records, to cover up a potential sex scandal involving a porn star.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, argued that the case was about something much larger: The payment to Stormy Daniels was part of an effort to hide information from voters before the 2016 presidential election.

This is a case of election interference, he said in an interview on NY1 in January.

Trump, who has always understood the power of catchy shorthand, is trying to characterize this case as the Biden trial, falsely claiming the accusations were orchestrated by the president to influence the 2024 election.

Disagreements over the most basic facts are commonplace in American politics, especially when Trump is involved. He described the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, as a beautiful day. He falsely says the 2020 election was stolen. So it's no surprise that he's tried to frame his lawsuit as interference in the 2024 election, even as he tries to use it to his advantage by using it to attract attention in New York and solicit funds across the country.

Crucially, the judge, Juan Merchan, seems to echo Bragg's phrasing of the case and it is his interpretation that might matter most.

In essence, the allegations claim that Donald Trump falsified business records to conceal a deal with others to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election, Merchan wrote in a court filing, describing how he plans to explain the matter to the jury.

Bragg framing

Last year, when Bragg first announced he was indicting Trump, the case seemed legalistic and complex.

Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denies the encounter. Trump, Bragg said, falsified records relating to payments he made to Cohen to reimburse him.

Truthful and accurate business records are important everywhere, Bragg said in detailing the accusations. That's not the sexiest way to describe the case, which is better known as a secret trial.

During this appearance, Bragg never used the exact phrase “hush money.” He argued that the accounting violations were intended to cover up at least one of three different crimes, including the campaign finance violations for which Cohen was convicted in 2018.

That payment, Bragg said at the time, was intended to hide damaging information from voters.

Bragg and his team discussed the idea of ​​influencing the election in key documents in the case, and he talked about it in his public interviews.

The crux of the matter is that it's not about money for sex, he said in a radio interview on WNYC in late December. We would say it was a conspiracy to corrupt a presidential election and then lies in New York business records to cover it up.

It's a somewhat new theory that has been the subject of opinion pieces by legal experts, but was validated by a federal judge when Trump's lawyers tried to take the case to court. a federal court.

Trump's framing

Trump's lawyers have worked hard to blunt any suggestion that the hush money payment was intended to influence the 2016 election. Rather, they say, he simply wanted to save himself from public embarrassment.

A candidate's attempts to keep certain questions personal are neither inappropriate nor illegal, they wrote in a document.

But publicly, Trump and his allies have used a different tactic. Trump has taken to erroneously calling it the Biden trial, even though President Biden's administration had nothing to do with the case. The case against Cohen was pursued by federal prosecutors during Trump's term in office; the Justice Department never filed charges against Trump himself in this matter.

Bragg steps in for what the DOJ failed to do, said Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a law professor who has criticized the Braggs case. But if Trump calls this case the Biden trial, he said, that ignores the distance federal prosecutors have deliberately kept from the case.

Yet Trump maintains his baseless claim that the lawsuit is part of a plot by Democrats to influence the 2024 election. In a filing, his lawyers said the case deprives the public of its right to view the campaign Trump.

It’s an I’m-rubber,-you’re-glue strategy that evokes the way Trump has reclaimed the concept of fake news. It's also baseless and somewhat absurd, experts say.

Characterizing the prosecution of a political candidate as election interference would allow anyone to prevent any prosecution for wrongdoing by simply stating, “I'm running for office,” said Alberto Gonzales, a Republican who served as attorney general under administration of President George W. Bush. To me, that's stupid.

Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor and Columbia law professor, said: “Having been indicted twice for trying to interfere with the election and now that his hush money payment is also being framed this way, Trump seems to think his base is benefiting from leveling the playing field.” to accuse others of doing what we are accused of doing.

And then there is everyone

I asked Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich, some of my colleagues covering the trial, how they preferred to refer to the case. They prefer clearer terms that tell more of the story. Trump, they told me, is specifically accused of covering up a sex scandal or falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 campaign.

And then there is a group who prefer not to talk about this matter at all. This would be President Biden and his aides, who seek to create a contrast with Trump without the impression that they are trying to profit from his legal woes.

Mike Johnson needs the Democrats

Last week, we looked at President Mike Johnson's delicate dance with Trump. Today, my colleague Annie Karni explains how he also needs to be careful with Democrats.

President Mike Johnson is trying to push Ukraine aid through the House over his own party's objections. For this, he will need the Democrats.

If House Democrats were to secure the crucial votes for aid, it would be the second time in two years that Republican leaders would have to turn to the minority party to save them from their own recalcitrant right-wing colleagues.

Given Republican opposition, Johnson will need Democratic support for aid to kyiv itself. But before he even gets there, he will need their votes on a procedural motion, known as a rule, to introduce the bill, something the minority party almost never supports in the House.

This once again puts Democrats in a strange but strong position, wielding considerable influence.

This dynamic also increases the likelihood that Johnson will again need Democrats to save his precarious presidency, now threatened by two members of his party, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. They are furious about his strategy of sending aid to Ukraine and seem to be getting closer every day to calling a vote to oust him from office.

Read the full story here.

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