For what Trump was arrested: Three hush payments
How Donald Trump became the first president indicted in court in US history
On Tuesday, 4 April, former US President Donald Trump appeared before a Manhattan court in New York, where he was detained for two hours and charged with 34 counts of falsifying financial documents. This event resonated, as neither the current nor the former president of the United States had ever been charged with a criminal offence before. Mind explored the charges against him and how this could end for him.
Donald Trump is accused of paying large bribes in 2015-2017 to "buy and bury" three compromising stories about his extramarital sexual affairs. The court found false business records concealing payments of $30,000 to Trump Tower doorman Dino Sayudin, $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has published a detailed outline of the schemes used by Donald Trump, in collusion with his aides, to illegally make these payments to avoid negative press coverage during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Dino Sayudin
According to prosecutor Alvin Bragg, $30,000 was paid to a former doorman at Trump Tower who claimed to have knowledge of Donald Trump's illegitimate child. One of the maids allegedly had an intimate relationship with the billionaire in the 1980s and gave birth to a child by him.
The doorman, Dino Sayudin, received a payment from the Trump-friendly National Enquirer in exchange for signing "exclusive rights to the story".
The contract included a $1 million fine that Dino Sayudin would have to pay if he told anyone about the illegitimate child or the deal with the National Enquirer.
Karen McDougal
In June 2016, five months before the US presidential election, former Playboy model Karen McDougal received $150,000 from American Media after she spoke about her 10-month relationship with Donald Trump in the mid-2000s. At the time, the billionaire had not yet entered the presidential race, but was already married to his current wife Melania.
As Alvin Bragg claims, Trump directly instructed his lawyer Michael Cohen to compensate American Media for the expenses.
Stormy Daniels
Porn actress Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) received $130,000 in hush money after she announced her desire to talk on TV about her sexual relationship with Trump, which happened in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006.
Alvin Bragg alleges that 12 days before the election, on 8 November 2016, Michael Cohen illegally transferred $130,000 to lawyer Stormy Daniels through a shell company that Cohen set up and financed at a bank in Manhattan.
Trump has repeatedly assured journalists that he knew nothing about the payments to Stormy Daniels through Michael Cohen. However, according to Alvin Bragg, the former US president personally reimbursed Cohen from two sources after winning the election: the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust in New York and his personal bank account. Every month in 2017, Michael Cohen received a cheque for $35,000 from Donald Trump and received 12 such cheques for $420,000 in total.
"Each cheque was processed by the Trump Organisation, and each cheque was disguised as payment for legal services rendered in a particular month of 2017. In fact, there was no contract of employment, and the lawyer was not paid for legal services. The defendant falsified financial documents to conceal his criminal actions," Alvin Bragg's indictment reads.
Donald Trump's position
Donald Trump says he will not plead guilty to any of the 34 charges. He calls the trial a political persecution related to his intention to run for president in 2024.
Trump accused the Democratic Party of "using justice as a weapon" and called prosecutor Alvin Bragg a protege of billionaire George Soros, who is doing the dirty work on behalf of Joe Biden.
"From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign," Fox News quoted Donald Trump as saying, "Remember that they attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. russia, russia, russia; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; impeachment hoax number one; impeachment hoax number two; the illegal and unconstitutional raid on the Mar-a-Lago right there; the lying to the FISA court... Our justice system has become lawless. They’re using it now, in addition to everything else, to win elections."
Lawyers' forecasts
Experts are sure that the trial of Donald Trump will drag on for years and will unfold against the backdrop of his election campaign in 2024. Although falsification of financial documents is punishable by up to four years in prison in the United States, Donald Trump does not face jail time. The jury will take into account the ex-US leader (he is 76), as well as the fact that the crime is non-violent and committed for the first time.
Professor Bennett Gershman from Pace University School of Law believes that Trump will suffer politically.
"Trump thinks that in the light of what's happening, he can make himself look like a victim and improve his political position," says Bennett Gershman, "I think his political rivals will use this trial to attack him. They will weaken his candidacy by proving that one cannot become president after forging documents. I think Trump will be politically damaged, and substantially so."
Radley Zelin, professor at Cornell Law School, believes that Donald Trump's legal team will try to prove to the court that the billionaire paid money to Dino Sayudin, Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels to protect his family, not to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
"Trump could argue, 'I was just trying to be a good husband and a good father. I was trying to keep this out of the press,'" says Radley Zelin.
However, with such statements, Trump will assure Americans that he did organise a group of people to cover up stories that compromise him. Many voters will take this negatively.
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