This is a historic trial since it is the first time that a former president of the United States has been tried criminally in this way. Donald Trump is expected in New York court to answer charges of fraud in connection with the Stormy Daniels affair. A look back at this issue which is impacting the 2024 American presidential campaign and its Republican candidate.
Extramarital sexual relationship denied by Trump
The facts date back to 2006 but the affair broke out much later, in 2018. when the former adult film star told CBS television channel having had sexual intercourse with the now American president around ten years earlier. In 2006, therefore, when Donald Trump was already married to his current wife Melania Trump, Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, met him at a golf tournament organized in the American West. The two media personalities end this rapprochement with a consensual sexual relationship. Donald Trump denies having had sex in 2006 with this woman.
A silence bought for 130,000 dollars
Ten years later, the former presenter of “The Apprentice” decided to enter the race for the White House against Hillary Clinton. A little housekeeping seems in order in his previous life as a carefree billionaire. According to an article from Wall Street Journal published in 2018, the personal lawyer of the Republican candidate who became his sworn enemy, Michael Cohen, pays the sum of $130,000 to Stephanie Clifford in exchange for her silence on her sexual relationship with Donald Trump. An agreement concluded at the end of October 2016, a few days before the first round of the presidential election.
Trump dropped by his lawyers
Michael Cohen admitted in 2018 to having been at the origin of the payment of the sum. A few weeks later, in May of the same year, it was around Rudy Giuliani, also a former lawyer for Donald Trump and ex-mayor of New York, to affirm that his client was well aware of the transaction, contradicting thus the defense of the winner of the presidential election. The case then attracted the curious eye of the justice system, in particular concerning the reimbursement of the sum to Michael Cohen via the Trump Organization. Because if “there is nothing criminal in the payment itself”, “what is illegal is to falsify the commercial documents of a company”, explains to AFP John Coffee, professor of law at Columbia University, specializing in financial crime.
Around thirty frauds
The trial therefore does not oppose Stormy Daniels to the billionaire. The case in which District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed the complaint is titled “The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump.” In this case, the real estate mogul is charged with 34 accounting frauds, including the alleged falsification of documents which served, according to the prosecutor, to conceal the payment of money to Stormy Daniels. Donald Trump is notably accused of having disguised the accounts of his real estate group Trump Organization to reimburse Michael Cohen. These frauds are punishable by a maximum sentence of four years in prison in the most serious cases.
Towards a new postponement?
“I don’t understand how we can have a trial during the election. It’s unfair,” the Republican candidate in the November election protested to the press in his Wall Street building. But Judge Merchan made it clear in the courtroom that he would not again adjourn this criminal trial which was initially scheduled to begin Monday April 8.
Targeted by several other legal proceedings, Donald Trump continues to denounce a “witch hunt” carried out according to him by Democratic prosecutors and judges who seek to derail his campaign. The law professor at the University of Virginia, Carl Tobias, also points out to AFP that Donald “Trump has already said that he will appeal, which risks further pushing back the date of April 15.”