Meet the key players in Trump’s hush money case

Former President Trump’s hush money trial began in New York on Monday, marking the first criminal trial against a former or current US president.

The Manhattan trial will begin with jury selection and is expected to feature a number of star witnesses, including a former Trump ally and someone involved in a 2016 hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The incident comes after weeks of tension and back-and-forth over a gag order imposed following a series of social media attacks by President Trump against various witnesses and people involved in the case.

Introducing the main characters of this incident.

donald trump

The former president is accused of illegally concealing hush money paid to cover up allegations of extramarital affairs ahead of the 2016 election.

He was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with repayments to then-fixer Michael Cohen after paying Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about the affair allegations in October 2016. is being asked.

He has maintained his innocence and repeatedly denied having an affair.

The indictment, handed down more than a year ago, makes Trump the first former president to face criminal charges. The former president has since been indicted in three other criminal cases, bringing the total to 91 charges in four separate jurisdictions.

michael coen

Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, is at the center of the allegations in the case. He is expected to testify about the payments to Daniels as a key witness against the former president.

He pleaded guilty in a federal case in 2018 and was sentenced to three years in prison. Some of the charges relate to payments made to Mr. Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement, which Mr. Daniels claimed he did at the direction of a “candidate for Congress.”

Mr. Cohen received repayments from Mr. Trump, and Mr. Trump’s company recorded the refunds as legal expenses.

Prosecutors allege the payments to Cohen were part of a broader “catch-and-kill” scheme to quell negative press coverage of Trump before the election.

Cohen was first introduced to Trump in 2006 by the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who worked at his law firm. Testifying at Trump’s civil fraud trial last year, Cohen said he had “admired” Trump since his high school days.

When the New York real estate mogul asked Mr. Cohen to leave the company and join his team at the Trump Organization, Mr. Cohen agreed and became one of Mr. Trump’s closest aides.

As the legal troubles between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump unfold, Mr. Cohen has become one of the former president’s most vocal critics.

stormy daniels

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims she first met President Trump in July 2006 at a golf tournament in the Lake Tahoe town of Stateline, Nevada.

She said President Trump invited her to his hotel suite, they had a sexual relationship, and that Trump suggested she could be a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice.” President Trump has repeatedly denied that she had a sexual relationship with Daniels.

Mr. Daniels agreed to tell the story to In Touch Weekly in May 2011, but the magazine did not publish it because Mr. Cohen reportedly threatened to sue. The article was finally published in 2018, when reports of the alleged affair were made public.

Prosecutors say Mr. Daniels tried to talk about it again in 2016, prompting Mr. Cohen to pay hush money and sign a nondisclosure agreement less than two weeks before the 2016 election.

She then sued Cohen in 2018 to avoid a non-disclosure agreement, and later filed separate defamation lawsuits against Cohen and Trump.

She is scheduled to testify at the trial, which is expected to last about six weeks.

Alvin Bragg

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) was the driving force behind the criminal charges against Trump, deciding last year to convene a New York grand jury that ultimately decided to indict the former president.

Mr. Bragg, who became the first Black district attorney in 2022, took over the hush money investigation from former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who retired.

Prior to joining the prosecutor’s office, Mr. Bragg served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York.

Judge Juan Melchan

Marchand is the New York State Supreme Court judge overseeing the case.

Tensions between Marchand and the former president’s legal team have escalated in recent weeks following an expanded gag order issued by Marchand after Trump attacked his wife and daughter on social media. There is.

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that Marchand is corrupt, and his legal team has called for Marchand’s resignation over his daughter’s employment at a company that works for a prominent Democratic lawmaker.

Machan rejected the latest effort to recuse himself from the trial shortly before it began on Monday.

He has many years of experience working in the New York City court system, including serving as an assistant attorney general covering Nassau and Suffolk counties in the early 2000s. Since 2009, he has served as an acting judge on the state Supreme Court, presiding over felony criminal trials.

He previously oversaw the tax evasion criminal trial against the Trump Organization, in which the company was found guilty on 17 charges and fined more than $1 million.

Karen McDougall, David Pecker

McDougal, a former Playboy model, is expected to testify at trial. She claims she had a sexual relationship with Trump, which he denies.

Pecker, former chairman of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, may also testify as a witness.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Pecker, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, would buy the rights to certain articles that could be embarrassing for Mr. Trump. Mr. Pecker and American Media were accused of participating in a “catch-and-kill” scheme in which they allegedly paid Mr. McDougall for the rights to his articles. The company never published McDougall’s article.

Trump’s legal team: Todd Blanche, Susan Necheres

Branch, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, is President Trump’s lead attorney.

In April, he resigned as a partner at the elite New York law firm Cadwallader, Wickersham & Taft, where he represents Mr. Trump and has a history of involvement in white-collar crime.

Mr. Necheres has become a key member of Mr. Trump’s legal team in New York in recent years. CBS News reported. The newspaper added that she has represented organized crime figures and several Democratic politicians.

President Trump’s aide

Several of Trump’s former White House aides may testify in the trial.

Among them is former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who was once one of President Trump’s closest aides and served as campaign press secretary before the 2016 election. She was questioned by prosecutors in the case last year, but her lawyer previously said she did not know about her payments.

Kellyanne Conway, a former aide to President Trump, may also testify. Axios reportsand Lorna Graf, a former senior vice president at the Trump Organization.