In opening statements in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial, prosecutors said Monday that the former president “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 presidential election. Defense attorneys countered, calling Trump “innocent” and saying the Manhattan district attorney’s office “should never have brought this case.”
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Quick Read
- Opening Statements Presented: In Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial, prosecutors allege he orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election, while defense attorneys insist Trump is innocent and criticize the Manhattan DA’s decision to prosecute.
- Allegations Against Trump: The trial centers on accusations that Trump falsified business records to hide a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, intended to prevent damage to his 2016 presidential campaign.
- Defense Strategy: Trump’s legal team argues the payments were legitimate legal expenses, distancing Trump from direct involvement in the payment processes and attacking the credibility of key witness Michael Cohen.
- Prosecution’s Argument: Prosecutors maintain that Trump played a direct role in the payments, emphasizing the alleged efforts to manipulate financial records to conceal the nature of the payouts to Daniels.
- Jury’s Role: A panel of twelve jurors and six alternates, all New Yorkers, will determine the outcome in this first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. commander-in-chief.
- Defense Attacks on Cohen: Trump’s attorney highlights Cohen’s criminal past and accuses him of turning against Trump out of spite, suggesting that his testimony is unreliable due to his personal and financial motives.
- Complexity of Charges: The case involves 34 counts of falsifying business records, with prosecutors needing to prove that these acts were intended to conceal another crime.
- Public and Legal Implications: The proceedings are set to feature weeks of contentious testimony related to Trump’s personal life, with significant implications for his ongoing political campaign against Joe Biden.
The Associated Press has the story:
Defense calls Trump ‘innocent’ in opening statements in hush money trial
Newslooks- NEW YORK (AP) —
In opening statements in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial, prosecutors said Monday that the former president “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 presidential election.
Defense attorneys countered, calling Trump “innocent” and saying the Manhattan district attorney’s office “should never have brought this case.”
The commencement of the proceedings set the stage for weeks of unsavory and salacious testimony about Trump’s personal life and placed his legal troubles at the center of his closely contested campaign against President Joe Biden.
A panel of New Yorkers — 12 jurors and six alternates — was sworn in last Friday after four days of jury selection and is hearing what is the first-ever criminal trial against a former U.S. commander-in-chief.
Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records as part of an alleged scheme to bury stories that he thought might hurt his presidential campaign in 2016.
At the heart of the allegations is a $130,000 payment made to porn actor Stormy Daniels by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from surfacing in the final days of the race.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of such payments in internal business documents. Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The hush money case is the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial.
DEFENSE ZEROES IN ON KEY PROSECUTION WITNESS
One of Donald Trump’s defense attorneys zeroed in during opening statements on the credibility of one of the prosecution’s key witnesses: Michael Cohen.
Attorney Todd Blanche provided an extensive account Monday of Cohen’s criminal record and his history of lying under oath. He said that Cohen turned against the former president only after he was not given a job in the administration and found himself in legal trouble.
Blanche accused Cohen of being “obsessed with President Trump,” saying “his entirely financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction.”
“You cannot make a serious decision about President Trump relying on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.
Anticipating the defense’s likely attacks on their star witness, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo acknowledged Cohen’s criminal record earlier in the day.
“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is so damning,” Cohen said.
“We will be very upfront about it,” he continued, adding that Cohen, “like other witnesses in this trial, has made mistakes.”
“You can credit Michael Cohen’s testimony despite those past mistakes,” he added.
TRUMP HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH PAYMENTS, DEFENSE SAYS
Defense attorneys in Donald Trump’s hush money case said Monday that he had nothing to do with payments that were made to prevent stories about his sex life from being made public near the end of the 2016 presidential election.
Todd Blanche portrayed the business ledger entries at issue in the case as pro forma actions performed by a Trump Organization functionary.
Trump “had nothing to do” with the invoice, the check being generated or the entry on the ledger, Blanche said.
While prosecutors allege Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen $420,000 — more than double what Cohen paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels — because the cover-up was crucial to the campaign, Blanche said the excess payments are proof that Trump had nothing to do with the scheme.
“Ask yourself, would a frugal businessman, a man who pinches pennies, repay a $130,000 debt to the tune of $420,000?” Blanche asked.
“President Trump had nothing to do with any of the 34 pieces of paper, the 34 counts, except that he signed the checks, in the White House, while he was running the country.”
Blanche took particular issue with the prosecution’s insinuation that attempting to influence an election connotes illegality.
“I have a spoiler alert: There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy,” Blanche said. “They put something sinister on this idea as if it’s a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”
DEFENSE BEGINS ITS OPENING STATEMENTS
Following the prosecution’s opening statements in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial, the defense called the former president “innocent” and said the Manhattan district attorney’s office “should never have brought this case.”
“He’s, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do: defending himself,” Todd Blanche said as Trump looked on with interest. He went on to describe Trump as a former president but also an everyday person — a man, a husband, a father.
In the prosecution’s openings, Trump was referred to as “the defendant.” But his own lawyers are referring to him as “President Trump.”
“We will call him President Trump, out of respect for the office that he held,” Blanche said.
Other Trump lawyers have used the same language in previous legal cases.
PROSECUTORS SAY TRUMP PAID COHEN DOUBLE FOR HUSH MONEY SCHEME
After the 2016 election, Donald Trump invited David Pecker, then publisher of the National Enquirer, to Trump Tower to thank him for his contribution to the campaign, prosecutors said Monday. He also invited the publisher to the inauguration and later to the White House, where a dinner was held to honor Pecker and then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.
But prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said Trump still had a few “loose ends” to tie up at the time, including reimbursing his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for the payments he had given to Stormy Daniels.
“Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star pay-off,’” Colangelo said. “So they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
Colangelo added that the evidence would show that while Trump is a “very frugal businessman,” when it came to reimbursing Cohen, Trump paid him double.
“This might be the only time it ever happened,” Colangelo said. Trump’s willingness to part with so much cash showed how important it was to him to keep the hush money scheme under wraps, the prosecutor posited.
TRUMP DIRECTED COHEN TO MAKE A DEAL WITH STORMY DANIELS, PROSECUTORS SAY
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape involving Donald Trump becoming public, Colangelo told jurors, The National Enquirer alerted Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen that porn actor Stormy Daniels wanted to go public with her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors, referring to the scheme as a “conspiracy” and “election fraud, pure and simple.”
TRUMP SHOWS NO REACTION TO ‘ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’ TAPE TRANSCRIPT
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors in Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case that The Washington Post’s publication of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, where Trump was heard on a hot mic “bragging about sexual assaults,” had an immediate and “explosive” impact on his presidential campaign.
Colangelo told jurors that prominent Trump allies withdrew their endorsements and condemned his language. The prosecutor said evidence would show the Republican National Committee even considered whether it was possible to replace Trump with another candidate.
As Colangelo read aloud words from the tape, Trump showed no reaction.
PROSECUTION HONES IN ON ‘CATCH-AND-KILL’ OPERATION
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s criminal trial honed in on what they called a “catch-and-kill” operation at the center of the allegations in the hush money case.
The plan was hatched at Trump Tower shortly after the then-presidential candidate had announced his candidacy. During that meeting, prosecutors say that David Pecker, then-publisher of the National Enquirer, agreed to “help the defendant’s campaign by working as the eyes and the ears of the campaign.”
Speaking of arrangements made to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to suppress her claims of a nearly year-long affair with the married Trump, Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information … become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”
Colangelo told jurors they would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they would hear Trump in his own voice, saying, “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
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— The hush money case is just one of Trump’s legal cases. See the others here
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— Trump was forced to listen silently as potential jurors offered their unvarnished assessments of him
