Looking back at the Stormy Daniels case that could lead to Donald Trump’s indictment : NPR

[ad_1]

A look at the case involving former President Donald Trump and adult film actress Stormy Daniels that could lead to Trump’s indictment.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Donald Trump could become the first former president in US history to be impeached. He has been invited to testify before a New York grand jury this week, a move seen as a likely prelude to an indictment. NPR’s Ilya Marritz covers Trump’s legal matters and joins us today. Good morning.

ILYA MARRITZ, BYLINE: Good morning.

RASCOE: It’s been pretty busy for you, I can imagine, Ilya, because there are a lot of criminal investigations surrounding the former president. Remind us where this one fits into the bigger picture.

MARRITZ: Right. Well, there is an investigation by a local prosecutor in Atlanta into the Trump campaign’s pressure on Georgia officials to move the state into his column in the 2020 election. Then there’s the federal investigation connected to that election and also the classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. This investigation is the longest running of them all, and it reaches back to 2016. It is led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who already won a conviction against the Trump family business for long-standing tax fraud in late last year. Trump was not personally charged. Bragg spoke in January just after the verdict.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ALVIN BRAGG: This historic sentencing serves or should serve as a reminder to everyone in New York, both companies in their corporate form and their executives, that this type of behavior in New York will not be tolerated and will be held accountable.

MARRITZ: What DA Bragg said next seemed a bit cryptic at the time. He said this conviction closes this chapter in the investigation of former President Trump and his business. Let’s move on to the next chapter.

RASCOE: I think we know about the next chapter now. So it has been widely reported that DA Bragg is presenting evidence to a grand jury about the hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Remind us what happened.

MARRITZ: Stormy Daniels says she had an affair with Trump. And in the 2016 presidential campaign, he was looking for a buyer for his story. Obviously, this kind of information would be bad for candidate Trump. I want to play you a piece of tape that was secretly recorded by Trump’s fixer at the time, Michael Cohen. What you will hear is a conversation between Trump and Cohen not about Stormy Daniels but about another woman, Karen McDougal, who has a similar story about an alleged affair with Trump. You can hear Cohen and Trump talking about how to buy the story so they can make sure it doesn’t get out.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MICHAEL COHEN: When it comes time for financing, which will be…

DONALD TRUMP: Listen. Why financing?

COHEN: We have to pay…

TRUMP: We’ll pay in cash.

COHEN: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I got…

MARRITZ: In the end, the National Enquirer bought McDougal’s story and didn’t publish it. And Cohen bought the Stormy Daniels story through a shell company. Trump later paid Cohen for what were described as legal costs. And it is this fact pattern that we believe is at the heart of the grand jury investigation. The payment may constitute falsification of business records, which may be a felony if shown to be in service of an illegal campaign donation under New York law. Remember, Michael Cohen went to jail for his part in all of this. This is an illegal federal campaign contribution.

RASCOE: But there haven’t been any ramifications for Trump personally so far. So what is his role here?

MARRITZ: Federal prosecutors were very clear in the Cohen case. They said Cohen acted at the direction of the individual, someone they did not name but who was very clearly Trump. And Cohen later described the president paying him individually, and seeing Trump sign them. But the Justice Department has a policy of not pursuing indictments against a sitting president, and that’s where the Manhattan DA began investigating about five years ago. And here we are now.

RASCOE: What is former President Trump’s team saying? And what are they likely to say if he is indicted?

MARRITZ: Trump always says the Stormy Daniels story is made up. He says Cohen is a liar, and that Democratic prosecutors like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg want to get him. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina also previewed some of his side’s legal strategy for NPR. He told us that the law here is murky and that the probable theory of Bragg’s case has yet to be tested. And that’s true. Most legal scholars say that the state laws available to Bragg would make this a very common and dangerous prosecution. Additionally, the defendant will be a former president.

RASCOE: If there is an indictment, when can we expect to see that?

MARRITZ: By the end of this month, at the earliest, people with knowledge of the New York grand jury process tell us.

RASCOE: That’s NPR’s Ilya Marritz. Thank you very much for joining us.

MARRITZ: Thank you.

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and consent pages at www.npr.org for more information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or changed in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

[ad_2]