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Trump’s first trial is starting. Here’s how it’ll work
After months of buildup, Donald Trump will become the first former president to ever stand criminal trial later this morning. He faces 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush-money payments used to keep an alleged 2006 affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels out of the news during the 2016 election.
The Guardian already has in-depth coverage and analysis that will help you understand exactly what’s going on (keep scrolling down!), but we have received a lot of questions about the trial’s logistics we want to address before things officially kick off. Here’s how things will work.
When will this happen?
The trial is expected to begin this morning with jury selection and run from 9.30am to around 4.30pm EST on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (the judge has a separate commitment on Wednesdays).
Will it be televised?
No. New York state law bars trials from being recorded or broadcast.
How will we know what’s happening, then?
Victoria Bekiempis, a reporter with years of experience covering the New York courts, will be our eyes and ears in the courthouse. She’ll be in the courtroom many days. There’s also an overflow room where reporters can observe the proceedings while still being allowed to have their electronic devices with them, allowing us to provide you with realtime coverage. The Guardian’s live blog will keep you informed throughout the day.
How long will the trial take?
This is a bit of a moving target, but we expect jury selection to last at least one week. The trial begins in earnest after that. The presiding judge, Juan Merchan, has predicted it will last about six weeks.
Could Trump go to jail? For how long?
It depends on how the trial and sentencing go. Each of the 34 counts carry a maximum four-year sentence.
Why is this Trump’s first criminal trial?
Trump’s legal team has successfully delayed his three other pending criminal trials. Prosecutors had indicated that they would hold off on this trial if a bigger trial needed to take place first. But when the US supreme court stepped in and delayed his election subversion trial in Washington, DC, it created an opening in the calendar for this one to take place.
Who is involved?
The Guardian’s Sam Levine has a full breakdown of all the key players involved. Here’s just a few:
Donald Trump, defendant
The Republican nominee for president is the defendant in the case. Prosecutors allege that he orchestrated a $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels when she threatened to go public with allegations of an affair on the eve of the 2016 election, and then conspired with others to cover up the payment.
Stormy Daniels, key witness
Daniels, an adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she met Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament. Daniels was 27 at the time and Trump was 60 and Daniels has always said the sex was consensual.
Just before the 2016 election, Daniels said she was approached by Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer at the time, and offered $130,000 not to disclose the alleged affair. She accepted the money. “The story was coming out again. I was concerned for my family and their safety,” Daniels told 60 Minutes in 2018.
After the Wall Street Journal broke the story of the payment, Daniels sued Trump to release her from the non-disclosure agreement. She said it was void because it had not been signed by Trump.
Michael Cohen, key witness
Cohen was once a lawyer for Trump and one of the former president’s most loyal lieutenants and enforcers. He facilitated the payment to Daniels, funneling the $130,000 to her through a shell company called Essential Consultants LLC. Trump later arranged to pay him back in monthly payment installments of $35,000. Trump allegedly worked with Cohen and Trump organization officials to conceal the purpose of those payments on business records.
Earlier in 2016, Cohen facilitated a similar payment to a different woman, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who also claimed to have had an affair with Trump. In the McDougal case, Cohen arranged for McDougal to be paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer.
Cohen initially said that he paid for the scheme with his own money. “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign … reimbursed me for the payment,” he said in 2018. “What I did defensively for my personal client, and my friend, is what attorneys do for their high-profile clients. I would have done it in 2006. I would have done it in 2011. I truly care about him and the family – more than just as an employee and an attorney.”
But in 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to a range of federal crimes, including campaign finance charges. At a plea hearing, Cohen admitted that he had facilitated the payments to the women at the direction of Trump. He served a three-year prison sentence, during most of which he was on home confinement. He was also disbarred in New York in 2019 after pleading guilty to lying to Congress.
What else to read to understand what’s going on:
Guardian US reporter Lauren Aratani has a great timeline of the case noting all of the key events that got us to this trial.
Aratani also breaks down how and why prosecutors are pursuing this case. While the story around the charges is rather salacious (it’s literal tabloid fodder), as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, said when he announced the charges against Trump last year, the charges themselves are fairly straightforward, calling them the “bread and butter of our white-collar work”.
Levine has a great look at prosecutors’ strategy and whether the public will care that the former president is on trial. Here’s an excerpt:
As the criminal cases mounted against Donald Trump last year, one could be forgiven for not giving much thought to the New York case that charged him with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records.
The episode was a bombshell when the Wall Street Journal first reported it in January 2018. Trump paid the adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 election to keep quiet about an affair. He funneled the payment through his lawyer, Michael Cohen, and then lied about the purpose of the payment in his business records. By the time the case was filed last year, it had largely faded in the public psyche – buried under Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election and an avalanche of other lies.
Now, the once-sleepy case will be the first time a former president has gone to trial on criminal charges. It’s an awkward incongruity – the case with what appear to be the more benign crimes is taking on an outsize importance by going first – and a dynamic that’s been shaped entirely by Trump, who has used an array of legal maneuvers to delay the other three criminal cases against him.
Like all of the trials against Trump, there will be a case in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion. And first-term district attorney Alvin Bragg will need to clear both hurdles by not only presenting a cut-and-dried case about falsifying business records, but reminding the American public who the true victims are: them.
“The prosecutor is going to want to sort of detail a precise case of ‘these are the documents, it was falsified, he knew and he had the intent’ and is going to try, in some ways, to simplify and streamline this case for the jury,” said Cheryl Bader, a professor at Fordham law school who specializes in criminal justice. “On the other hand, they also want to show why this matters as a matter of election democracy and choosing the highest officer in the land.”
Have any questions about Trump’s trials? Please send them our way at: trumpontrial@theguardian.com
