NEW YORK (AP) — donald trumpHush Money’s criminal trial moves to opening statements on Monday, followed by the start of witness testimony. A jury made up of seven men and five women, plus six substitutes, was chosen last week.
The trial centers on allegations that the former president falsified his company’s internal records to obscure the true nature of refund payments to your former fixer and lawyer michael cohenwho arranged hush payments to bury negative stories about him during his 2016 presidential run.
Witnesses include a porn star, a former tabloid editor and Cohen, who went to federal prison for his role in the hush money matter and for other crimes, including lying to Congress. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass warned potential jurors that they have “what you might consider baggage.”
Here’s a look at the key players in the historic first criminal trial of a former US president:
DEFENDANT
DONALD TRUMP – The former president of the United States and presumptive Republican nominee, who parlayed his success as a reality TV star and famous businessman into winning the presidential election in 2016, becoming America’s 45th president. The trial involves allegations that he falsified his company records hide the true nature of payments to Cohen, who helped bury negative stories about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. He has pleaded not guilty.
WITNESSES
MICHAEL COHEN – Former Trump lawyer and mediator. He was once a fierce ally of Trump, but is now a key witness in the prosecution against his former boss. Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations related to the silent agreements and other unrelated crimes.
STORMY DANIELS – The porn star who received a $130,000 payment from Cohen as part of his efforts to hide money. Cohen paid Daniels to keep quiet about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
KAREN MCDOUGAL – A former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. She was paid $150,000 in 2016 by the National Enquirer’s parent company for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship. Trump denies having sex with McDougal.
DAVID PECKER – The Former editor of the National Enquirer and a longtime friend of Trump. Prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
HOPE HICKS – Former Trump White House communications director. Prosecutors say she spoke to Trump by phone during a frantic effort to keep allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leaked weeks before the 2016 election. In the 2005 tape, Trump boasted about grabbing women without permission.
ATTORNEYS
ALVIN BRAGG-A former civil rights lawyer and law professor, Bragg is a Democrat in his first term as Manhattan district attorney. He inherited the investigation from Trump when he took office in 2021. He oversaw the prosecution of Trump’s company in an unrelated tax fraud case before indicting Trump last year.
MATTHEW COLANGELO – A former high-ranking Justice Department official who was hired by Bragg in 2022 to lead the Trump investigation. They previously worked together on Trump-related matters in the New York attorney general’s office.
JOSHUA STEINGLASS – Manhattan District Attorney for more than 25 years, he has worked on some of the office’s highest-profile cases, including the 2022 Trump Organization tax fraud conviction and cases involving violent crimes.
SUSAN HOFFINGER – Chief of the District Attorney’s Investigative Division, she returned to the office in 2022 after more than 20 years in private practice with her sister, Fran. She worked with Steinglass on the Trump Organization’s tax fraud prosecution.
TRUMP LAWYERS
TODD BLANCHE – A former federal prosecutor, Blanche previously represented Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paulo Manafort, in a mortgage fraud case – and got it thrown out. Blanche successfully argued that the case, brought by the same prosecutor’s office now facing Trump, was too similar to the one that landed Manafort in federal prison and therefore represented a double jeopardy.
SUSAN NECHELES — A former Brooklyn prosecutor, Necheles is a respected New York City defense attorney who represented Trump’s company in his tax fraud trial last year. In the past, she served as the lawyer for the late underboss of the Genovese crime family, Venero Mangano, aka Benny Eggs, and defended John Gotti’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler, in the early 1990s.
EMIL BOVE – A famous college lacrosse player, Bove was a veteran federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. He has been involved in several high-profile prosecutions, including a drug trafficking case against the former Honduran president’s brother, a man who detonated a pressure cooker in Manhattan, and a man who mailed dozens of bombs to high-profile targets in Manhattan. All country.
THE JUDGE
JUAN M. MERCHAN — The judge presiding over the case. He was also a judge in the 2022 Trump Organization tax fraud trial and is overseeing a border wall fraud case against longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon. Merchant denied requests twice by Trump’s lawyers to remove him from the case. They claim he is biased because his daughter runs a political consulting firm that has worked for Democrats, including President Joe Biden. Merchan said he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
