It looks like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, intends to pursue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump. But the charges he seems to have in mind, based on a 2016 hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, are so iffy that they reinforce Trump's reflexive complaint that he is, as always, the victim of a long-running Democratic "witch hunt."
Daniels claims she had a sexual affair with Trump in 2006, when he was married to his current wife, former First Lady Melania Trump. Although Trump denies the affair, he arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels in the fall of 2016 to keep her story out of the press. There is nothing inherently illegal about that payment. But Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer who paid off Daniels and was reimbursed by Trump, pleaded guilty in 2018 to violating federal law by making an excessive campaign contribution.
