New York — A porn actress alleging they had sex was the kind of gossip Donald Trump would have enjoyed before politics. Trump worried the fake narrative would cost him votes on the eve of the 2016 election. Prosecutors believe he paid Stormy Daniels to stay silent.
After years of fits and starts before an indictment last year, Trump will face state charges in New York on Monday for the sex scandal he and his associates tried to cover. This will be Trump's first of four criminal trials, barring a last-minute delay. The first presidential criminal prosecution will be unusual in U.S. history.
The hush money allegations weren't necessarily certain to lead to charges or be the first to go to trial. Other Trump indictments involve government secrets and democracy dangers, but this one is less dangerous. It will likely be the most scandalous, with testimony concerning alleged marital infidelity, a supermarket tabloid's coverup, and reimbursements by a former Trump loyalist who now opposes the ex-president.
Since 2018, when federal prosecutors charged Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen with campaign finance crimes for burying Daniels' claims and other potentially damaging playboy stories, many facts of the case have become public. They later named Trump as Cohen's boss, calling him “Individual-1” in court documents. Nothing happened because Justice Department protocol prohibits prosecuting a sitting president with a crime.
A Russian election interference investigation, Trump's two impeachments, and allegations that he plotted to overturn his 2020 election and hoarded classified documents after leaving office overshadowed the tantalizing tale of sex, politics, and coverups in the years that followed. Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. investigated Cohen's $130,000 payout to Daniels and declined to charge Trump.
The hush money case was so unclear to prosecutors that it was called the “zombie case.” They pursued Trump on numerous fronts during the previous five years, going to the Supreme Court twice to get his tax records and charging his company and a top executive for tax fraud. In January 2022, Democrat Alvin Bragg replaced Vance and saw the hush money issue differently.
The grand jury met January 2023. It heard from Cohen, now a vocal critic of his ex-boss, and other witnesses, including the former publisher of the National Enquirer, which supported Trump by buying and burying damaging articles in “catch-and-kill.”
On March 30, 2023, the grand jury indicted Trump for falsifying his company's internal records to hide Cohen's payments for concealing up potentially embarrassing reports. The charges are felonies punishable by up to four years in jail, although a conviction is not guaranteed.
Trump claims prosecutors are conducting “election interference” and a “witch hunt.” His plea is not guilty. Bragg's office accused Trump of orchestrating a “expansive and corrupt criminal scheme to conceal damaging information from the voting public” and “undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election” in a court filing. The indictment described a multi-part plot to hide stories of Trump's extramarital sexual encounters from the start of his 2016 campaign.
Cohen allegedly caused the National Enquirer to pay $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed a monthslong romance with Trump, before the Daniels payment. The newspaper also paid $30,000 to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed Trump had an illegitimate child.
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