NEW YORK — Donald Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 presidential election when he conspired to prevent damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, a prosecutor told jurors on Monday at the start of his historic secret trial. -president.
The opening statements launched the first criminal trial of a former American president, a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a hotly contested race for the White House in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a defendant facing the prospect of a criminal conviction. and prison.
“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. He then covered up that criminal conspiracy by repeatedly lying in his New York business records,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors.
Statements from prosecutors and later Trump’s lawyers will give the 12-person jury and the voting public the clearest view yet of the allegations at the heart of the case.
They also served as an introduction to the colorful cast of characters that make up the tawdry saga, including a porn actress who says she had a sexual encounter with Trump; the lawyer who, according to prosecutors, paid her to keep silent about the matter; and the tabloid editor who agreed to act as the campaign’s “eyes and ears.”
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison — although it is unclear whether the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not prevent Trump from becoming president again, but because this is a state case, he could not seek to pardon himself if he were found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a chapter in Trump’s history, when his celebrity past clashed with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he went out of his way to stifle stories he feared would torpedo his campaign.
In his opening statements, Colangelo traced the origins of the effort to the emergence, late in the 2016 campaign, of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording, in which Trump could be heard bragging about sexually grabbing women without their permission.
“The impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive,” Colangelo said, telling jurors how prominent Trump allies withdrew their support and condemned his language.
The prosecutor said the evidence will show that the Republican National Committee even considered whether it would be possible to replace Trump with another candidate.
Just days after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer warned Cohen that porn actress Stormy Daniels was agitating to go public with her allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“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.
The prosecutor also described other payments that were part of what is known in the tabloid industry as a “catch and kill” strategy – capturing a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then suppressing or killing it through settlements. which prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
Colangelo also spoke about deals made to pay a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress her allegations of a nearly year-long affair with the married Trump. Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was concerned about its effect on the election.”
He told jurors they will hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 informing Trump of the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they hear Trump in his own voice, saying, “How much do we have to pay for this? A fifth?”
Trump arrived at the courthouse just before 9 a.m., minutes after decrying the case in all caps on social media as “election interference” and a “witch hunt.”
The trial will require him to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail, a reality he complained about on Monday when he lamented to reporters that he was “here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania and Georgia and many other places”. campaign, and it is very unfair.”
Just as Trump went through a jury selection process in which several potential jurors expressed negative opinions about him, he will be forced to remain in court while salacious and potentially unflattering details about his personal life are shared with the jury.
However, Trump has sought to turn his status as a criminal defendant into an asset for his campaign, raising funds to avoid his legal risk and repeatedly criticizing a justice system that he says for years has been used as a weapon against him.
To hear the case, there is a jury that includes, among others, several lawyers, a sales professional, an investment banker and an English teacher. At the start of the trial on Monday, Judge Juan Merchan revealed that one of the jurors selected for the case had expressed reservations about participating, apparently due to intense media attention. The juror was questioned in private but will remain on the case.
The case will test jurors’ ability to set aside any bias, but also Trump’s ability to comply with court restrictions, such as a gag order that prohibits him from attacking witnesses. Prosecutors are seeking fines against him for alleged violations of that order.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a key prosecution witness.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
To convict Trump of a crime, prosecutors must demonstrate that he not only falsified or caused business records to be falsely entered, which would be a misdemeanor, but that he did so to conceal another crime.
The allegations do not accuse Trump of a flagrant abuse of power, like the federal case in Washington, which accused him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election, or of disregarding national security protocols, like the federal case in Florida, which accused of hoarding confidential documents.
But the New York indictment has taken on added importance because it may be the only one of the four cases against Trump that comes to trial before the November elections. Appeals and legal disputes have delayed the other three cases.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
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