Donald Trump’s New York hush-money probe explained

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NEW YORK (AP) — In the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump’s lawyer tried to buy the silence of a porn actress who said she had sex with the Republican during her days as a reality TV star.

More than six years later, New York prosecutors appear close to deciding whether Trump should face charges related to that payment, in what could be the first criminal charges brought against a former president.

News Thursday that the Manhattan district attorney has invited Trump to testify before a grand jury next week suggested prosecutors are serious about filing charges in an investigation that seemed like yesterday’s news just months ago.

Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, now a key prosecution witness, is scheduled to testify before a grand jury on Monday, according to two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to speak publicly about the grand jury proceedings and did so on condition of anonymity.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and that he had any extramarital affairs, and he blasted the investigation in a Truth Social post as a “political Witch-Hunt, trying to take down the leading candidate, right now, in the Republican Party “

Here’s a refresher on how things got to this point:

WHAT IS THIS CASE ABOUT?

The investigation centers on hush money payments made in 2016 to two women who alleged they had extramarital encounters with Trump, who denied their accounts of his infidelity.

In particular, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team appears to be looking into whether Trump or anyone else committed crimes in arranging the payments, or in the way they accounted for them within the Trump Organization.

HOW ARE PAYMENTS MADE?

Cohen paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 through a shell company Cohen founded. Trump then paid him, with the company logging the reimbursements as legal expenses.

Earlier in 2016, Cohen also arranged for former Playboy model Karen McDougal to be paid $150,000 by the publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which dropped her story in a journalistic dubious practice known as “catch-and – kill.”

Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, “grossed” Cohen’s payment for Daniels’ payment for “tax purposes,” according to federal prosecutors who have filed criminal charges against the lawyer in connection with payments in 2018.

Cohen earned $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus, for a total of $420,000.

Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law in connection with the payments. Federal prosecutors said the payments amounted to illegal, unreported aid to the Trump campaign. But they refused to file charges against Trump himself.

WHAT DOES TRUMP MEAN?

Cohen said Trump ordered him to arrange the payment to Daniels.

Cohen also produced recordings of a conversation in which he and Trump talked about arranging to pay McDougal through the National Enquirer.

At one point in the recording, Cohen told Trump, “I’m going to have to open a company to transfer all that information about our friend, David,” a reference to David Pecker, who ran the company’s main Enquirer at the time.

Cohen said he had spoken with the Trump Organization’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, on “how to set the whole thing up.”

Then Trump said: “What do we have to pay for this? One-fifty?”

Now, Trump has described attempts to get him to pay women money to silence them as “extortion.”

WHAT CRIMES DO PROSECUTORS LOOK AT?

Legal experts say a case can be made that Trump falsified business records by logging Cohen’s reimbursement for paying Daniels legal fees. But that’s only a misdemeanor under New York law — unless prosecutors can prove he falsified records to cover up another crime.

Mark Pomerantz, who led the investigation under then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., wrote in his recent book “People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account” that in 2021, he looked at whether Trump could be indicted of money laundering or if Trump was extorted in any way.

David Shapiro, a fraud risk and financial crimes specialist and former FBI special agent, said a potential case against Trump could be “particularly difficult” when it comes to proving his intent and knowledge of misdoing.

“He’s loud, he’s rude, so it proves that he has a definite intention to defraud, one is almost left with the idea that, ‘well, if he has a specific intention to defraud, he has all the time, because that’s his personality,’” said Shapiro, a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on the investigation.

AREN’T WE HERE YET?

Yes. Many times.

Federal prosecutors entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the owner of the National Enquirer, who admitted paying McDougal to help Trump, but declined to seek criminal charges against the then-sitting president.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office opened its own investigation into the payments in 2019 and has revisited it several times as the probe expands into Trump’s business dealings and other topics.

So far, the only charges are against Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty, and the Trump Organization, which was convicted in December of an unrelated offense: evading taxes on company-paid perks like freebies. apartments and cars for executives.

WHAT ABOUT THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS?

Cohen’s hush money payments and reimbursements occurred more than six years ago. New York’s statute of limitations for most felonies is five years. For misdemeanors, only two years.

Does that mean prosecutors are running out of time? That’s what Trump thinks. In social media posts, he insisted the statute of limitations had “expired a long time ago,” calling the matter “old news.”

But the law doesn’t always work that way. In New York, the clock can stop the statute of limitations when a potential defendant continues to be out of state. Trump has rarely visited New York during the four years of his presidency and now lives mostly in Florida and New Jersey.

However, practically speaking, the passage of time can affect the case in other ways. Memories fade, and evidence and records are lost or destroyed.

“The power of the case — the surprise factor, the shock value,” also disappears, Shapiro said, which means a jury may be less impressed by allegations that have been public for a long time.

WHO ARE THE PROSECUTORS TALKING TO?

Members of Trump’s inner circle, including his former political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokeswoman Hope Hicks, have met with prosecutors in recent weeks. Cohen, now estranged from Trump, has made several visits to prepare for his expected grand jury testimony.

Among others: Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, was seen entering the building where the grand jury was meeting, as well as Trump Organization insiders including the company’s senior vice president and controller Jeffrey McConney.

Prosecutors are still interested in Weisselberg’s insider knowledge of the hush arrangements. The 75-year-old ex-CFO is scheduled to be released from a five-month prison sentence on April 19. There is no indication that he wants to cooperate against his former boss.

Trump himself is unlikely to testify before a grand jury or meet with prosecutors.

WHAT OTHER LEGAL TROUBLE IS TRUMP FACED WITH?

The hush-money case is one of several potential criminal charges facing the Republican as he makes another run for the White House in 2024, along with an investigation into election interference in Georgia, an investigation into the storage of classified document on his home in Florida, and other matters.

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Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

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Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.

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