The trial comes as Trump, 77, tries to return to the White House
Prosecutors opened Donald Trump’s hush-money trial on Monday by revealing new details about how they want to prove the former president rigged the 2016 election to bury a sex scandal, while a defense attorney replied that the payment was only to protect his reputation.
The trial, underway in Lower Manhattan, includes 34 felony counts, the first of a former president, alleging that Trump paid $130,000 to porn star Stormi Daniels to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct. Falsified business records. Prosecutors say he falsified records by claiming to pay his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels, for legal fees.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo used his opening statement Monday to outline a criminal conspiracy involving Trump, Cohen and David Packer, who ran the company that owned the National Enquirer, to buy and bury negative news stories about the former president. had agreed The conspiracy, he said, began in a May 2015 meeting at Trump Tower.
“The evidence shows that this was not spin or strategy, but rather a plan to influence the election to help Donald Trump get elected,” he said. “This was election fraud, pure and simple.”
The lawsuit comes as Trump, 77, tries to return to the White House in a rematch with President Joe Biden. It is one of four lawsuits pending against the presumptive Republican nominee, who calls the case election interference and a witch hunt by Democrats.
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanch had a different spin on the events.
“Spoiler alert: There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” Blanche said. “It’s called democracy.”
Trump’s reputation
He attacked the prosecution and their witnesses. Blanche said Daniels threatened to make public her account of having sex with Trump in 2006, which was “almost an attempt to extort her.” Cohen, the DA’s star witness, “sides” with Trump and would lie to get him convicted, he said.
“It was outrageous, it was an attempt to embarrass President Trump,” the defense attorney said. Trump bought Daniels’ silence, he said, to protect “his family, his reputation and his brand.”
Blanche said her “larger-than-life” client is the victim of high-profile lawyers who believe in Daniels and Cohen, former Trump fixers who went to prison for perjury and other crimes.
The basic events of the trial have been known since 2018, and especially since Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump last year. But Colangelo disclosed that the evidence included Cohen and Packer’s internal account, emails, text messages and recordings of Trump discussing repayment, he said.
The crime centers around business records that Trump allegedly covered up in a $420,000 payment to Cohen, or more than double what he paid Daniels to buy her silence, Colangelo said. After he was elected, Colangelo said, Trump falsely claimed the payments were for legal fees, he said.
Porn star pay
“They couldn’t say ‘paid for porn star pay,’ so they had to cook the books,” Colangelo said.
Colangelo said the judge would listen to Trump “working out the terms of the deal” on tape with Cohen. “You will hear the defendant’s own voice in a recorded conversation.”
Their goal was to hide damaging information before the election and discredit Trump opponents like Ted Cruz and Ben Carson with bogus stories. The Inquirer will “catch and kill” damaging stories, or buy unsavory articles with no intention of publishing them.
Packer was briefly called as the prosecution’s first witness on Monday, explaining some basics about his role, and will return on Tuesday. He said he had the final say on which stories were published in the Enquirer and which did not see the light of day.
“We used checkbook journalism and paid for the story,” he said.
Access Hollywood
Colangelo said the October 2016 release of the so-called Access Hollywood tapes, in which Trump boasted about his victory over women, had an “immediate and explosive” impact on the campaign. That meant he had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Daniels, to prevent another election surprise.
“The campaign was concerned,” the prosecutor said. “They knew it was damaging, not only because Trump bragged about sexual assault” but it was “in his own words, in his own voice.”
Bragg filed the first of four criminal charges against the former president. What was unclear as of Monday was how the former president would defend Bragg’s specific allegations beyond attacking the DA and calling it a witch hunt.
Trump, who wore a navy suit, white shirt and blue tie, appeared subdued and took frequent notes as Blanche took aim at Cohen, the witness who could directly link the payments to the election. Blanche cited Cohen’s criminal record after leaving Trump, including his prison sentence for tax fraud and perjury to Congress.
“He raised his hand, swore to tell the truth and then lied under oath,” Blanche said. As a podcaster and book author, Cohen is now obsessed with Trump, “his whole livelihood depends on this Trump obsession.”
The defense counsel said it was a mistake to trust such a person.
“You can’t make a decision about President Trump based on Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.
He also took a shot at Daniels, who he said profited greatly from his account of having sex with Trump in 2006 and still owes him $600,000 in legal judgments. He told jurors that his story is unrelated to the financial transactions Cohen made that are at the heart of the case.
“His testimony, while salutary, doesn’t matter,” said Blanche.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
