Prosecutors will make history with opening statements in Trump’s hush-money criminal case

Former President Donald Trump attends jury selection in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. Trump’s criminal hush money lawsuit includes allegations that he falsified his company’s records to conceal the true nature of payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who helped bury negative stories about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty.
Associated Press/April 15, 2024

NEW YORK – For the first time in history, prosecutors will present a criminal case against a former US president to a jury on Monday, accusing Donald Trump of a hush-money scheme aimed at preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public.

A 12-member jury in Manhattan will hear opening statements from prosecutors and defense attorneys in the first of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial.

The statements are expected to give jurors and the voting public the clearest picture yet of the allegations at the heart of the case, as well as insight into Trump’s expected defense.

Lawyers will also introduce a colorful cast of characters expected to testify about the made-for-tabloids saga, including a porn actor who says she had a sexual encounter with Trump and the lawyer who prosecutors say paid her to keep quiet about it.

Trump is charged with 34 felonies for falsifying company records and faces up to four years in prison if convicted, although it is not clear whether the judge will try to put him behind bars. A conviction would not prevent Trump from running for president again, but because it is a matter of state, he would not be able to try to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied all allegations.

As Trump battles to win back the White House, the trial will require him to spend his days in court rather than on the campaign trail. He will have to listen as witnesses tell salacious and possibly unflattering details about his private life.

Still, Trump has tried to turn his status as a criminal defendant into an asset for his campaign, raising money for his legal peril and repeatedly railing against a legal system that he has claimed for years is being weaponized against him.

The case will be heard by a jury, which includes several lawyers, a sales professional, an investment banker and an English teacher.

The case will test jurors’ ability to set aside any biases, as well as Trump’s ability to adhere to the court’s restrictions, such as a gag order banning him from attacking witnesses. Prosecutors are seeking fines against him for alleged violations of that order.

The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a chapter in Trump’s history as his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and he, prosecutors say, tried to prevent potentially damaging stories from surfacing. come through hush money payments.

One of those payments was a $130,000 sum that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, gave to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims about a sexual encounter with Trump shortly before the 2016 election from going public. to appear.

Prosecutors say Trump covered up the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution.

Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal fees.

To convict Trump of a crime, prosecutors must show that he not only falsified business records or caused him to enter false documents, which would be a crime, but that he did so to conceal another crime.

The charges do not accuse Trump of blatant abuse of power, like the federal case in Washington, in which he is accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, or of ignoring national security protocols, like the federal case in Florida, in which he is accused of hoarding secret documents.

But the New York prosecutor has gained importance because it may be the only one of the four cases against Trump to go to trial before the November election. Appeals and legal wrangling have postponed the other three cases.

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Tucker reported from Washington.