NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York is filled with terms you don’t normally hear in a courtroom.
Centering on allegations that Trump falsified his company records to conceal the nature of hush money refunds, this is the first criminal trial of a former US president and the first of Trump’s four indictments to go to trial. It also has some unique terminology.
here are some examples:
DEFINITION: According to Merriam-Webster, it is money paid to someone to keep information secret. In other words, money a person pays someone to hush up something.
EXAMPLE: Three payments that prosecutors say were made on Trump’s behalf to bury allegations of marital infidelity during his 2016 presidential campaign. They are the National Enquirer’s $30,000 payment to a Trump Tower doorman and $150 thousand to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and the $130,000 that then-Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen arranged to pay porn star Stormy Daniels.
Paying hush money is not illegal per se, but authorities say payments made to suppress stories about Trump amounted to illegal campaign contributions. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign violations, among other unrelated crimes. The National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., entered into a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for its cooperation with prosecutors. The Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, declaring the agreement with McDougal a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.”
DEFINITION: As prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors in his opening statement, “catch and kill” is when a tabloid like the National Enquirer “buys damaging information about someone, requires the source to sign a nondisclosure agreement to prevent them from taking that information or that story somewhere else, and then the tabloid refuses to publish the story to prevent it from seeing the light of day.” A confidentiality agreement is also known as a confidentiality agreement.
EXAMPLE: Tabloids typically pay sources and story subjects for the information they end up publishing. But sometimes they pay for stories to prevent their publication. Former National Enquirer editor David Pecker testified that he agreed, at a Trump Tower meeting in August 2015, to be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Under the terms of the agreement, Pecker said he would notify Cohen about women who sought to sell stories about Trump so that Trump’s team could “put them out of business or kill them in some way.”
Pecker testified that he suppressed stories about other celebrities and politicians over the years using the same “catch and kill” methods, including actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and golfer Tiger Woods. Pecker said he sometimes suppressed stories simply to help a friend or promote his business interests, but often he did so to get the subject of the story to do something else, such as agreeing to an interview or posing for the cover of a magazine.
DEFINITION: This is the criminal charge being decided in Trump’s trial in New York. He is charged with 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. It is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison, although there is no guarantee that Trump would be convicted at any point if he were convicted. He pleaded not guilty.
Under New York law, a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he makes or causes a false entry to be made in the business records of a company and does so with the intent to defraud, including the intent to commit or conceal another crime. .
EXAMPLE: Prosecutors allege that Trump misrepresented payments to Cohen in Trump’s company records as legal fees when they were actually a reimbursement of the $130,000 Cohen arranged to pay Daniels. The records in question include accounting entries, invoices and checks. Prosecutors argue that Trump’s actions were a way to hide the hush money scheme and hide other crimes arising from it, including alleged violations of election law. Trump denies the accusations. His lawyers said the payments to Cohen were for legitimate legal expenses.
DEFINITION: Trump is not charged with the crime of conspiracy, but prosecutors at his New York trial used the term repeatedly to describe his “eyes and ears” deal with Pecker and the hush money deals that followed.
According to Merriam-Webster, conspiring involves entering into “a secret agreement to do an illegal or tortious act or an act that becomes illegal as a result of the secret agreement.” Under New York law, a conspiracy involves at least two people acting with the intent to commit a crime.
EXAMPLE: Colangelo, the prosecutor, said in his opening statement that the Trump trial involves “an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election.” To convict Trump of the crime of falsifying business records, prosecutors must demonstrate that he intended to commit another crime. Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said in court that one of the crimes Trump intended to commit was a violation of a New York election law — a misdemeanor involving a conspiracy to promote or impede an election.
DEFINITION: Any attempt to alter the outcome of an election through nefarious means, such as fraud, voter intimidation, or efforts to overturn the result of an electoral contest.
EXAMPLE: Prosecutors allege that the hush money scheme amounted to election interference because it involved a concerted effort to hide important information from voters in order to increase Trump’s chances in the 2016 election race.
Not only did the National Enquirer act as the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears,” identifying negative stories so they could be suppressed, Pecker testified that the tabloid, at Cohen’s behest, published stories that tarnished Trump’s opponents. It also published stories that boosted Trump’s image.
It’s a different type of election interference allegation than Trump is accused of in his Washington and Georgia cases, where he is accused of trying to subvert his defeat in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Trump claims that being put on trial while campaigning as this year’s presumptive Republican nominee is his own form of election interference.
DEFINITION: Generally speaking, a gag order is “a court ruling that prohibits the public release or discussion (such as by the press) of information related to a case,” according to Merriam-Webster. In Trump’s case, it is known as an Extrajudicial Statement Restraining Order, with extrajudicial meaning outside of court.
EXAMPLE: Judge Juan M. Merchan, acting at the request of prosecutors, imposed a limited gag order on Trump on March 26. It prohibits the former president from making or instructing others to make public statements on his behalf about potential witnesses about his participation in the case. It also prohibits comments about jurors, prosecutors other than District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and any statements intended to interfere with or harass court staff, the prosecution team or their families.
Merchan expanded the order on April 1, barring Trump from commenting on his family or Bragg’s family. The move came after Trump attacked the judge’s daughter and made false claims about her on social media.
Last Tuesday, Trump was fined $9,000 – $1,000 for each of nine separate gag order violations the judge identified. Prosecutors later requested an additional $4,000 fine for what they considered additional violations of the order.
Merchan lamented that $1,000 per violation is the maximum fine allowed by law and suggested the possibility of arresting Trump if he continues to run afoul of the gag order, an unprecedented outcome for a former American president.
Trump’s lawyers insist that he needs leeway to respond to criticism, including from witnesses like Cohen and Daniels, and that the gag order impedes his ability to answer questions and defend himself amid enormous media coverage. of your case and your application.
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