Donald Trump’s hush money is key to opening arguments in trial – Times of India

NEW YORK: Opening statements Monday in the former US president’s first criminal trial provided a clear roadmap for how prosecutors will try to make their case. Donald Trump broke the law and how Defense plan Fight complaints on multiple fronts.
Lawyers presented competing narratives as jurors first watched as prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying business records in 2016 as part of a scheme to suppress negative stories about him. Presidential campaign.
Next week is likely to feature dramatic and embarrassing testimony about the Republican presidential nominee’s personal life as he campaigns to return to the White House in November.
Here are some key takeaways from your opening statement:
Electoral fraud and “bookkeeping” cases
Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal business records of the Trump Organization. But prosecutors have made it clear they don’t want jurors to see it as routine. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the case centered on a plan to “corrupt” the 2016 election by silencing people who would come forward to tell embarrassing stories that Trump feared would damage his campaign.
“No politician wants to get bad press,” Colangelo said. “But the evidence at trial will show that this was not a publicity or communication ploy. This was a planned, coordinated, long-term conspiracy to influence the 2016 election and help elect Donald Trump through illegal spending to silence the bad guys. to talk about his activities.”
The business records charges stem from expenses such as invoices and checks that appear in Trump Organization records as legal fees that prosecutors say were actually $130,000 in hush money from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels. Daniels threatened to publicly claim she had extramarital sex with Trump. He said it never happened.
The prosecutor’s description appeared to be an attempt to counter suggestions from some experts that the case – possibly the only one to go to trial before the November election – is not as serious as the other three charges he faces. The lawsuit accuses Trump of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden and illegally withholding classified documents after he left the White House.
Trump, meanwhile, tried to play down the charges as he left court Monday, calling it a “bookkeeping” case and a “very small thing.” But he also said it’s all about the election – this November’s election. Trump has repeatedly claimed the case is part of a larger effort by Democrats to undermine him in his bid to regain the presidency.
Trump’s defense comes to the fore
Trump’s lawyers have attacked the lawsuit as baseless, saying the former president did nothing illegal.
Attorney Todd Branch disputed prosecutors’ claim that Trump agreed to pay Daniels to help his campaign, saying Trump was trying to “protect his family, his reputation and his brand.”
Branch said the defense will argue that, after all, the purpose of the presidential campaign is to try to influence the election.
“It’s called democracy,” Branch told the judges. “They add something sinister to the concept, as if it’s a crime. You will find that this is not the case.”
The branch described the ledgers at issue in the lawsuit as pro forma actions performed by Trump Organization employees. The branch said Trump had “nothing to do” with the allegedly falsified business records “except that he signed checks from the White House while running the country.” He argued that the legal fees noted in the records were not false because Cohen was Trump’s personal attorney at the time.
Prosecutors aim to put Trump at center stage
Thirty-four counts in the indictment relate to payments to Daniels. But prosecutors plan to file charges against another woman who accused Trump, former Playboy model Karen McDougall, and a Trump Tower man who claims there is a story about Trump marrying a child as evidence of bribery. Trump has said these lies.
Prosecutors have said they will prove Trump was at the center of a scheme to silence women, telling jurors they will hear Trump talk about a scheme to pay McDougal. Cohen arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougall $150,000 but not publish the story, known as “Catching.”
Colangelo told jurors prosecutors will play them secret recordings of Cohen’s meetings with Trump in the weeks before the 2016 election. In a recording first released in 2018, Trump can be heard saying: “What did it cost us? One-fifty?”
Colangelo said Trump “doesn’t want information about Karen McDougal to come out because he’s worried about the election.”
Cohen’s credibility comes under scrutiny
The defense’s opening arguments foreshadowed a key defense strategy: an attempt to discredit Cohen, a Trump loyalist turned critic and hoped to become the prosecution’s star witness. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to hush money and served time in prison.
The jurors’ belief that Cohen arranged payments to the women at Trump’s direction could affect the case in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Trump’s lawyers have highlighted Cohen’s criminal record, calling him a serial liar who turned against Trump after being passed over for a public job and landed himself in legal trouble. Branch said Cohen’s “entire financial livelihood depends on destroying President Trump,” noting that he hosts a podcast and has written books slamming his former boss.
“He has a goal and he’s obsessed with beating Trump,” Branch said. “I assure you, he is not to be trusted.”
The defense is expected to launch an attack on Cohen, with prosecutors vowing to come clean and admit “mistakes” by Trump’s former lawyer. But Colangelo said that despite Michael Cohen’s past, “you can trust his testimony.”
The prosecutor said, “I doubt you’re going to try very hard for the defense to rebut her testimony because it was so horrific”.
But first: David Peck
Former Enquirer publisher David Packer was the first witness for prosecutors to say that Trump’s alleged scheme to withhold potentially damaging information from voters began in 2015. A meeting between candidates Pekar and Cohn at Trump Tower. Peck took the stand before court opened Monday and is expected to continue his testimony Tuesday.
At the meeting, Pekar – a longtime friend of Trump’s – agreed to report to Cohen to help Trump’s campaign, publish articles favorable to him, smear his opponents, find salacious stories about him and strike a “catch” deal. Those include charges brought against Daniels, McDougal and former Trump Tower janitor Dino Sajudin, prosecutors said. Trump says everything is fake.
American Media, then owner of the Enquirer, may have asked Pekar about all the alleged efforts on behalf of Trump. Federal prosecutors in 2018 agreed not to prosecute American Media in exchange for cooperation in a campaign finance investigation, and the Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, saying the McDougal deal was “prohibitive.” . “
Pekar’s brief comments on the witness stand Monday were mostly about his background and other basic information, though he said the Enquirer practices “checkbook journalism” — paying for coverage — and isn’t interested in any comments about celebrities. In the final say.
“Resident” or “President Trump”?
Prosecutors referred to Trump as the “defendant” in their opening statement. Trump’s lawyers took a different tack, calling him “President Trump.”
“Out of respect for the position he holds, we will refer to him as President Trump,” Trump’s lawyers said, trying to paint Trump as a regular person, describing him as a husband, father and fellow New Yorker.
“In some ways, he was larger than life. But he was also in the courtroom, doing what any of us can do: defending himself,” Branch said.
Trump sat quietly, listening to opening arguments, occasionally passing notes to his lawyers and whispering in their ears. But outside the courtroom, he continues a pattern of trying to use the case politically, requiring him to spend his day in court rather than on the campaign trail.
“So they tried to get me out. The checks were made payable to lawyers,” Trump said.

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