After a years-long investigation by New York prosecutors, Donald Trump is facing his first criminal trial in Manhattan on Monday.
Trump is accused of covering up a $130,000 payment to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, on business records. Trump allegedly had his former fixer Michael Cohen pay Daniels, while Trump reimbursed Cohen in 2017 and reported the reimbursement as legal fees.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors allege Trump fudged his business records to cover up criminal activity, including trying to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election.
The trial will kick off with jury selection and is expected to last about six weeks. Here’s what we know the trial will cover.
Stormy Daniels’ payment is at the center of the case
On 26 October 2016, 11 days before election day, Michael Cohen initiated a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
While prosecutors have identified two other hush-money payments to people who said they had stories about Trump, one a former Trump Tower doorman and the other Karen McDougal a former Playboy model, the actual charges for the case stem just from Daniels’ payments. That’s because the other hush-money payments were made by American Media, the parent company of the tabloid National Enquirer. Leaders of the company, especially the then CEO, David Pecker, were close allies of Trump and told him early in his campaign that they would help him with any scandalous stories that might come out about him.
But Trump paid Daniels himself, albeit through Cohen. Each of the 34 counts of falsifying business records represents a document that prosecutors said included hush-money payments masked as legal fees to Cohen.
What prosecutors are trying to prove
The jury will decide whether Trump hid the payments to Daniels to cover up criminal activity, what prosecutors refer to as “concealed crimes”.
While the concealed crimes are not explicitly outlined in the indictment of Trump’s charges, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, said the payment hid violations to New York election laws, “which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means”.
“That is why Mr Trump made false statements about his payments to Mr Cohen. He could not simply say that the payments were reimbursements for Mr Cohen’s payments to Stormy Daniels,” Bragg said in April 2023, when the charges were announced. “To do so, to make that true statement, would’ve been to admit to a crime.”
Trump denies Daniels’ story, though he admitted to making the payment to Daniels, saying in 2018 that “the agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair”.
Bragg said that his office had prosecuted “hundreds” of concealed crimes through charges of falsifying business records. Prosecutors will have to convince the jury that Trump not only fudged his business records, but that he also had criminal activity to cover up.
Timeline of key events
August 2015
Trump meets with David Pecker, CEO of American Media, parent company to the National Enquirer. Pecker tells Trump that he will be the “eyes and ears for the campaign” and will buy the silence of anyone with salacious stories on Trump.
August 2016
Pecker, through his company, pays Karen McDougal $150,000 to stop her from speaking out about Trump. They paid for the exclusive rights to the story but didn’t end up publishing anything, essentially burying it for the presidential candidate.
October 2016
Access Hollywood tape is released. Bragg’s office said evidence shows Trump’s team was concerned about how the tape would affect his campaign. While Trump wanted to hold off on paying Daniels for as long as possible, thinking that the story wouldn’t matter if he was elected, the Access Hollywood tape spun the campaign into crisis mode.
“Ultimately, with pressure mounting and the election approaching, the defendant agreed to the payoff,” prosecutors said in court filings.
A few days after the tape was released, Cohen starts a deal with Stormy Daniels through her lawyer to negotiate her silence.
On 26 October, Cohen facilitates a $130,000 payment to Daniels.
February 2017
Michael Cohen sends an invoice to Trump, what would be the first of 11 monthly invoices that are records on business records as expensing Cohen’s legal services. In reality, the payments are reimbursements for Daniels’ hush-money payment.
February 2018
After the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump arranged a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen said he paid Daniels with his own money and was not directed by Trump or his campaign to make the payment. He said Trump never reimbursed him.
August 2018
Cohen pleads guilty to criminal charges in Manhattan federal court, including campaign finance violations over the hush-money payments. Cohen admitted to making the payments at Trump’s direction “for the principal purpose of influencing” the election. He was sentenced to three years in prison for the election law violation, along with other tax and bank fraud charges.
August 2019
Cyrus Vance, who was the Manhattan district attorney at the time, issues a subpoena to the Trump Organization for records of the hush-money payments
January 2023
Alvin Bragg, who was elected as Manhattan district attorney in 2023, and prosecutors in his office start presenting evidence to a grand jury. Witnesses, including Cohen and Pecker, testify.
March 31, 2023
The grand jury votes to indict Trump. This is the first time a former US president has ever been criminally indicted.
April 4, 2023
Trump is charged in courts and pleads not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records.
