Donald Trump To Be Indicted In NY For Hush Money Payment

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Donald Trump has been indicted in New York, over a hush money payment made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The paper cited four people with knowledge of the matter.

No former US president has ever been criminally indicted. The news is set to shake the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in which Trump leads most polls.

Trump also faces legal jeopardy over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress; his attempts to overturn the 2020 result in Georgia; his retention of classified records; his business dealings; and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape by the writer E Jean Carroll, which Trump denies.

Daniels claims an affair with Trump in 2006. Trump denies the affair but has admitted directing his then lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence.

Cohen was also revealed to have arranged for $150,000 to be paid to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump.

That payment was made by David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper, which squashed the story. Trump has admitted reimbursing Cohen with payments the Trump Organization logged as legal expenses.

Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was president from 2017 to 2021. News of the payment to Daniels broke in January 2018.

Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law, contributing to a three-year prison sentence handed down in December 2018.

Investigations of the Daniels payment have dragged on. Earlier this year, Mark Pomerantz, an experienced New York prosecutor who resigned from Bragg’s team then wrote a book, called the payment a “zombie case” which would not die.

Earlier this month, Cohen testified before the grand jury in the Manhattan hush money case. Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, former White House aides, reportedly spoke to prosecutors, as did Daniels, Pecker and Jeffrey McConney, senior vice-president and controller of the Trump Organization. Trump did not testify. He denies wrongdoing, claiming the payments represented extortion.

Earlier this week, a Trump lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told MSNBC Trump had simply taken advice from his lawyer, Cohen, which was “not a crime”. Tacopina also said the payments to Cohen were simply “legal fees”. Trump’s lawyers are expected to seek to delay the case.

Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor in New York, said Trump would in all likelihood not head swiftly to court. Writing for MSNBC, Weissmann said: “Beyond Trump’s notorious abuse of the legal system by throwing sand in the gears to slow things down, a criminal case takes time.” He added: “There is no end of motions that can be filed to delay a trial, which could easily cause the litigation to be ongoing during the Republican primary season [in 2024] – something a court could also find is reason to delay any trial date. Indeed, even in a more quotidian case, having a trial within a year of indictment would be quick.”

 

[Daltonio]

 

[Nebulous]

Do you think Trump is a pimp?

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) From hush money news to criminal court: brief timeline
Here is a reminder, courtesy of Reuters, of the timeline of how we got to today:

January 2018 – The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in October 2016 to prevent her from discussing a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. Trump has consistently denied having an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

February 2018 – Michael Cohen, a former private lawyer and fixer for Trump, says he paid Daniels using his own money and was not directed by Trump’s company or campaign to make the payment. He said Trump never reimbursed him for the payment. Cohen would later contradict both statements under oath, stating Trump did in fact direct him to make the payment and reimbursed him.

April 2018 – Trump, when asked by reporters if he knew about the payment to Daniels, responded, “No.” Asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump said, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen.”

May 2018 – In an ethics disclosure, Trump acknowledges reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 paid for Daniels.

August 2018 – Cohen pleads guilty to criminal charges in Manhattan federal court, including campaign finance violations over the hush money payments. He testified that Trump directed him to make the payments “for the principal purpose of influencing the election”.

August 2019 – Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney at the time, issues a subpoena to the Trump Organization for records of hush money payments.

July 2021 – Vance’s office indicts the Trump Organization and its top financial executive on tax fraud charges. Trump himself is not charged with a crime, and the indictment contains no references to hush money payments.

December 2022 – The Trump Organization is found guilty of tax fraud after a trial in New York state court in Manhattan.

January 2023 – Having replaced Vance as district attorney, Alvin Bragg’s office begins presenting evidence about Trump’s alleged role in the 2016 hush money payments to a grand jury.

March 2023 – Manhattan prosecutors invite Trump to testify before the grand jury, which legal experts say is a sign an indictment could come soon. Cohen testifies before the grand jury.

18 March 2023 – Trump says on his social media platform Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on 21 March and calls on his supporters to protest. A spokesperson for Trump said the former president had not been notified of any arrest.

23 March 2023 – Bragg’s office says Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested, and tells Republican congressmen seeking communications, documents and testimony about the probe that they were interfering with an ongoing investigation.

24 March 2023 – Trump warns of potential “death and destruction” if he is charged with a crime.

30 March 2023 – Media reports say Trump is indicted.

 

[Webster]

Do you think Trump is a pimp?

I think Dalton's just happy that Trump got indicted....

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) The charges, explained
Hugo Lowell in New York and Lauren Gambino in Washington report: In a 13-page statement of facts, the Manhattan district attorney’s office accused Trump of having “orchestrated a scheme” with the intent “to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects”.

The charges, according to the felony indictment unsealed on Tuesday, stem from payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, as well as hush money deals made with Playboy model Karen McDougal, who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Trump ahead of the 2016 election, and a former Trump Tower doorman, who claimed Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock.

Trump has denied the sexual encounters and any wrongdoing, casting himself as the victim of a political “witch-hunt”. “We today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law,” Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said at his press conference after Trump’s arraignment. “No amount of money, no amount of power changes that enduring American principle.”

Facing scrutiny over his decision to pursue the case, Bragg forcefully defended the case. He argued that falsifying business records was the “bread and butter” of his office’s white-collar investigations and that “true and accurate business records” were all the more important in Manhattan, which he called the “financial capital of the world”.

According to prosecutors, Daniels was paid $130,000 by Trump’s then lawyer Michael Cohen to buy her silence in the final days of the presidential campaign. Cohen said the payments were made at the direction of Trump, who reimbursed him while serving as president. Those payments, distributed to Cohen through Trump’s company, were falsely classified as legal expenses, prosecutors say.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to federal crimes involving the hush money payment and was sentenced to three years in prison, which Trump’s legal team has used to undermine his credibility.

Separately, prosecutors say, the parent company of the National Enquirer, American Media Inc, arranged two “catch and kill” deals to squash stories that could potentially damage Trump’s electoral prospects. One involved a $30,000 payoff to the former Trump Tower doorman. The tabloid reached a $150,000 agreement with McDougal, purchasing the rights to her story in an effort to keep it from going public. The prosecutors doubled down on the timing of Trump’s actions, which they said could have undermined his campaign during the 2016 election. And they asked for protective orders for discovery materials, including Trump’s escalatory posts on his platform Truth Social, such as when he vowed “death and destruction” in the event he was indicted.

 

[Nebulous]

I think Dalton's just happy that Trump got indicted....

Oh yeah that makes more sense. Me too.

 

[MrDawn]

Hush money almost never works. People take the bribe and then sue or testify against your ass in court anyway.