Donald Trump has become the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes as a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
was found guilty by a Manhattan jury Thursday on all 34 counts in the criminal case related to an alleged hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.Latest updates from Donald Trump's hush money trial
"The entire purpose of this meeting at Trump Tower was...to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion," Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during his closing statement about the alleged scheme. Trump later reimbursed Cohen in 2017 by making a series of $35,000 payments, labeled in business records as legal expenses pursuant to a retainer agreement.Prosecutors alleged that Trump's description of the payments disguised their true purpose so voters would never learn about the hush-money payment, though a 2018 Wall Street Journal report uncovered the payment.
Trump himself was referenced in Cohen's indictment as "Individual-1" who directed him to make the payments, but federal prosecutors opted to not charge Trump due to a longstanding guidance against indicting sitting presidents. At the time, the case appeared dead in the water, but Bragg shook up his legal team and found success in the prosecution of the Trump Organization for a 15-year tax fraud scheme and a guilty plea from Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg. By 2023, a new case theory centered on the testimony of Michael Cohen emerged, and prosecutors successfully convinced a grand jury to indict the former president.
Prosecutors first called Pecker, who went into detail about the catch-and-kill agreement he made with Trump and Cohen during and after the 2016 campaign. "I told very few people that we had actually had sex because I felt ashamed that I didn't stop it, that I didn't say no," Daniels told jurors. Specifically, he accused Cohen of lying about a phone call he said he had with Donald Trump on Oct. 24, 2016, showing phone records that indicated Cohen called Trump's bodyguard.
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