A lawyer who paid a former porn actress 130,000 dollars (121,000 euros) before the 2016 US presidential election to prevent her from revealing a sexual encounter with Donald Trump told a court on Monday. Revealing the secret before going to the polls would have been “catastrophic” for the former US president’s political ambitions.
Attorney Michael Cohen, who served as Trump’s adviser and handler between 2006 and 2018, is a key witness in the trial in which the former US president is accused of falsifying the financial records of his company, the Trump Organization.
According to the indictment, Trump committed felony forgery in 2017, filing fees paid by Cohen as simple attorney fees. According to prosecutors, the fraud was intended to cover up another crime — illegal interference in the 2016 campaign by paying for the silence of Stormy Daniels, the former actress at the center of the case.
To secure Trump’s conviction, Manhattan prosecutors must convince 12 jurors — through testimony from Cohen and Daniels, and by submitting evidence such as checks and records of phone conversations — that the former president of the United States engaged in fraud. His intention was to cover Daniels’ path to pay for his silence.
For this to happen, it’s important to establish in court that Trump saw the threat of revealing the sexual encounter with Daniels as a fatal blow to his candidacy — something Cohen confirmed on Monday.
Two weeks ago, the former boss of the tabloid National EnquirerDavid Becker told the court that he made a deal with Trump and Cohen in the summer of 2015 to uncover and suppress information that could harm the Republican candidacy — and to pay Daniels and at least two other people. made under this Agreement.
Last week, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Hope Hicks, said she would release it The Washington PostA few weeks before that year’s election, a recording of Trump bragging about forced sexual relations with women caused alarm among his teammates.
Hicks’ testimony was important because Cohen paid Daniels after the videotape was released. The Washington Post And — just days before the presidential election — it lends substance to the idea that Trump wanted to keep Daniels’ story a secret so as not to further harm his chances of victory.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in a related case in New York.
In that process, which was led not by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, but by the US Department of Justice (which is why Trump could not be the target of any criminal charges, since he was the US President at the time), the prosecutor was found guilty of multiple tax and bank fraud charges, and for Daniels’ silence to prevent voters from accessing sensitive voting information. He was deemed to have violated personal campaign finance limits by paying $130,000. Conclusion
In the case, now being tried in Manhattan, prosecutors allege Cohen acted with Trump’s knowledge and at his behest when he paid Daniels. It was at the time of the refund that Trump was accused of committing the only crime the indictment says: falsifying his company’s financial records.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”