Former President Donald Trump will be on trial in New York over allegations he falsified business records to pay his former attorney Michael Cohen a sum of $420,000, some of which prosecutors say was reimbursement money for Stephanie Clifford, a former porn star who alleged an affair with Trump.
34 felony charges are being brought against Trump in the case. Trump has maintained his innocence of any wrongdoing, has denied the alleged affairs, and says the case is a political witchhunt designed to hurt his chances at defeating President Joe Biden.
Prosecutors say the way the payments were done were campaign finance violations and that they were done to cover up crimes committed by Cohen.
Trump’s defense team attempted to delay the trial several times, but the judge denied three separate appeals. The trial is set to begin on Monday, April 15th.
The first stage of the trial will be the selection of jurors. Trump’s team has argued that the vast media coverage has tainted the jury pool and that finding a jury will be difficult.
Michael Cohen will be the star witness in the case. The prosecution alleges that Trump’s claim of paying Cohen for legal services was a payment to reimburse Cohen for his expenses to Clifford.
Cohen was previously convicted on eight charges and was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen’s attorney said his client would testify to everything he knew about Trump in the case.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called Cohen a “disgraced attorney and felon.”
Trump’s team said in their preliminary statement that the payments were made from Trump’s personal accounts and that the prosecution declined to go after Hillary Clinton for similar payment arrangements. The statement said in part,
“President Trump cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts. Knowing so, in an effort to bolster the superficial appearance of the case, but without adding to its substance, DANY brought multiplicitous counts based on the same payments and same course of conduct.
New York’s business records statute has never been applied in this fashion, and even the most ardent and publicly supportive former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, to have worked on the case doubted that DANY’s legal theory is viable.
The theory is so flawed and the prosecution so politically driven that, when the Federal Election Commission identified similar conduct by Hillary Clinton, DANY did not even issue a subpoena to Clinton or anyone in her orbit.”
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The trial is expected to last approximately six weeks.
Each charge carries a potential four-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine.
