Donald Trump may face criminal charges in Stormy Daniels hush money case

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Amid the many investigations of former President Donald Trump going on right now, a new one or rather, an old one has gained some unexpected momentum.

This week, the New York district attorney’s office began presenting evidence to a grand jury about whether Trump broke the law in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the New York Times reported. York Times.

You might be thinking: Stormy Daniels… Thats a name Ive not heard in a long time. Actually.

The world first became aware of Daniels in 2018, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen arranged the payment, made shortly before the 2016 election so that the adult film actress would not reveal the his claim that he had a relationship with Magkatatak. Cohen, who was already under investigation by investigators, later pleaded guilty in August 2018 to violating federal campaign finance laws over that payment and others, charging for documents that prominently identified Trump as Individual-1.

Cohen said he made the illegal payment at Trump’s direction, so there’s been a lot of speculation about whether Trump is on the hook for violating campaign finance law as well.

But instead, the case was lost. A federal investigation was closed in 2019, and the New York district attorney’s office looked into it but apparently lost interest in favor of pursuing a broader investigation into Trump’s business dealings.

So why is it back now, in 2023?

Only Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg truly knows the answer to that. But some context is that when Bragg first took office earlier this year, he put the brakes on the Trump business investigation in a decision that prompted two prosecutors to resign and was heavily criticized.

Amid this backlash, and mounting legal danger for Trump both federally and in the state of Georgia, Bragg appears to have come to terms with his early reluctance. And he has now accepted the Times reports that have become known in his office as the zombie theory of pursuing charges based on hush money.

But whether these potential cases, if filed, will prove strong enough to survive court scrutiny is far from clear.

Long time ago. What is the hush money scandal about again? Stormy Daniels attends an event on May 11, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

In October 2016 weeks before the presidential election, as Trump was publicly besieged by a series of sexual harassment or assault accusations from several different female adult film actresses Stormy Daniels is preparing to reveal her own story about a consensual affair that took place with a Trump in 2006. But, her representatives informed, she is also willing to accept payment for her silence.

Earlier in the campaign, Cohen partnered with American Media Inc. the National Enquirer’s parent company to hunt down and kill unflattering stories about Trump, with AMI paying the accusers for exclusive rights to their story, and then not publishing those stories . AMI executives were involved in discussions about paying Daniels as well, but they ultimately rejected it so Cohen had to handle it himself.

Cohen set up a shell company, Essential Consultants, and sent $130,000 to Danielss’ lawyer on October 27. Later, after Trump won the election, he paid Cohen in installments in 2017.

The problem, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York later said, was that it violated campaign finance law. They argued that because this money was spent to help Trump win the election, it should be disclosed as campaign spending and subject to legal limits on donations. Cohen pleaded guilty in this case as part of a larger plea deal, so the case was not tried before a jury.

But the prosecutors’ theory is not universally accepted. The New York Times described it as a relatively novel use of campaign finance law, and it was sharply questioned by Attorney General Bill Barr after he took office. In any case, SDNY prosecutors told a judge in July 2019 that the case was closed, in part because Trump is the sitting president and according to Justice Department policy he cannot be prosecuted.

As Trump nears leaving office in 2021, SDNY prosecutors are revisiting the case, discussing whether they should reopen it now that he no longer has presidential immunity. According to CNN legal analyst Elie Honigs recent book Untouchable, prosecutors are divided on the strength of the case.

Some believed the evidence was more than enough to charge in an ordinary case, while others thought it was still a close call, even if there was still a charge, Honig wrote, continuing, Even if the evidence is sufficient to support a case, it is also not a slam-dunk case in the majority’s view.

He added that some of the team believed that the hush money scheme was serious, but not the end of the world, and that it seemed somehow trivial and outdated compared to his later actions like trying to bring down the Joe Bidens election win. So in the end, SDNY decided to let it lie.

So how did it transfer to the Manhattan district attorney? Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg arrives in the courtroom during the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial in New York Supreme Court on Dec. 6, 2022, in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

After news became public that the SDNY had dismissed the hush money case in 2019, Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance took it up, bringing Cohen in for interviews and demanding the Trumps’ tax returns.

But the investigation soon spread outside.

First there is the real estate valuations case. The Vances’ prosecutors developed a theory, supported by public evidence and the Cohens’ testimony, that Trump overvalued some properties when he sought loans and insurance policies, but undervalued those that property for tax purposes, so he owes less in estate taxes. They investigated charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and insurance fraud.

But the problem is proving that Trump knew his company was breaking the law, because he could argue that everything his company did was approved by his chief financial officer and legal team, who are experts in such matters. . So prosecutors zeroed in on that CFO, Allen Weisselberg, pressuring him for months to flip on Trump. Weisselberg did not do this.

So the fringe benefits case came next. In July 2021, Vance’s office charged Weisselberg and several Trump business entities with tax fraud. The company paid apartment and car leases for Weisselberg and private school tuition for his grandchildren, without subjecting it to taxes. Trump himself has not been charged, and the maximum penalty for Trumps company is relatively small, so it is not the only one that threatens a lawsuit.

Pending that trial, Vance left office, and Bragg, the newly elected district attorney, inherited the Trump investigations in early 2022. After the case focused on real estate speculation , he was reportedly unimpressed. According to the New York Times, Bragg told the two top prosecutors that he had doubts about moving forward with the case, and grand jury activity was paused. The two top prosecutors resigned in February, and one, Mark Pomerantz, has a book coming out next week giving his account of what happened.

Bragg, who was elected as a criminal justice reformer, then faced intense criticism in the media and from Democrats for being too lenient on Trump. He said little at first, but by April he said the real estate appraisal case was still moving forward. The fringe benefits case, meanwhile, is still headed to trial, and in August, Weisselberg agreed to change his plea to guilty (though he still defied Trump, and was sentenced to five months in prison). Trump’s businesses were convicted at trial, and sentenced to pay $1.6 million in fines.

And at some point last year, Braggs’ office returned to where the Manhattan DAs’ investigation began: the hush money. It recently convened a grand jury to hear the evidence, and Cohen was brought in for another round of interviews.

We don’t know exactly why they returned the money, nor do we know how strong the case is. Importantly, the DA can only charge violations of New York state law, so federal campaign finance charges are not relevant here.

According to New York Times reporters William Rashbaum, Ben Protess, Jonah Bromwich, and Hurubie Meko, though, prosecutors have a theory about how to charge it. The key is that when Trump paid Cohen for the hush money, he classified it as legal fees. Prosecutors want to argue that amounts to illegal falsification of business records.

But because it’s only a misdemeanor and hardly worth a charge, they also want to argue that it was done in violation of New York state election law, making it a felony. That second aspect is largely untested, and would therefore make for a dangerous legal case against any defendant, let alone the former president, Times reporters wrote.

This seems to suggest the possibility that the hush money case is a little more affordable, a zombie legal theory that has been revived now that Bragg seems to realize that the hell would benefit more politically from being seen as trying to bring down Trump although we cannot say for certain. greater understanding of his evidence and legal reasoning.

For now, this can only add to the pile of other legal problems Trump has, with no end in sight.

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