Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
The verdict, delivered by a jury after less than 12 hours of deliberation in the unprecedented first criminal trial of a US president, marks a dangerous political moment for Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. His poll ratings have remained stable throughout the trial but could plummet at any time.
Trump was convicted by a 12-judge New York jury of a felony count of falsifying business records, which makes it a crime to make or cause to be made a false statement in a record with the intent to commit a second-degree crime.
In Trump’s case, the Manhattan district attorney’s office alleged that Trump falsely recorded as “legal expenses” payments he made to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair with Trump.
Prosecutors argued the fabrication was intended to conceal Trump’s violations of New York state election law, which makes it a crime to fraudulently advance someone’s election to office.
Prosecutors argued that part of the illegal scheme was a $130,000 payment to Daniels that was made solely for her 2016 campaign and exceeded the $2,700 limit for individual contributions, making it effectively an illegal campaign contribution.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office called 20 witnesses to testify over four weeks about how Trump conspired with tabloid mogul David Pecker and Cohen to cover up reports of Daniels’ affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Witnesses, some of whom were friendly to Trump and others openly hostile, said Trump’s concerns about the Daniels case intensified after the October 2016 release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tapes in which Trump was captured on a hot microphone bragging about the sexual assault.
The recordings included Trump boasting that his celebrity status allowed him to “grab women by their private parts” without their consent. Witnesses at the trial testified that the Trump campaign tried to deny the recordings as “locker room talk” but worried that would fail if more crude behavior came to light.
With Daniels’ story threatening to become public knowledge just weeks before the 2016 election, Cohen took action and paid Daniels $130,000 to buy exclusive rights to the story in order to suppress its publication.
Prosecutors alleged that after the 2016 election, Cohen set up a fraudulent repayment plan in which he promised to repay $420,000 – an inflated amount that included $130,000 in tax-deductible claims and other “inflated” items.
At trial, prosecutors sought to use testimony from Cohen, Daniels and other Trump aides and employees to prove that Trump covered up the alleged bribery scheme to protect the support of female voters.
Cohen proved to be perhaps the prosecution’s most legally significant witness as he detailed how he used a mortgage to raise $130,000 and sent the money through a shell company to Daniels’ lawyers, something he testified he did in the belief that Trump would repay him.
Cohen said he discussed with Trump and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, in January 2017 about reimbursement of $130,000, unpaid bonuses and other expenses incurred from work benefiting Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Cohen allegedly created 11 invoices seeking payment based on nonexistent legal “instructions,” which resulted in 11 checks being written to Cohen and 12 entries for “legal expenses” in the Trump Organization’s general ledger — a total of 34 suspected forgeries.
Cohen, the prosecution’s final witness, said Trump was furious when he learned Daniels was on the brink of making the allegations. Cohen had worked with Daniels’ lawyer, Keith Davidson, in 2011 to remove articles about the affair from gossip sites.
“Just deal with it,” Cohen recalled Trump saying. “This is a disaster, a goddamn disaster. Women are going to hate me.”
“Did you make payments to Stormy Daniels without Mr. Trump’s approval?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Cohen.
“No, it was all because I needed Mr. Trump’s approval. Plus, I wanted my money back,” Cohen said.
Cohen said he submitted fake invoices for legal services to cover up the payments, and repeatedly claimed that Trump was behind the Daniels conspiracy, paying bribes “to keep this story from leaking and to prevent it from affecting Mr. Trump’s chances of becoming president of the United States.”
In a tipping point, Cohen told jurors those repayments began shortly after he met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss money on Feb. 8, 2017. Cohen never received any repayment for those payments.
“So I was sitting with President Trump and he asked me if I was OK and if I needed money, and I said, ‘No, I’m OK,'” Cohen told the jury. “And he said, ‘Okay, you just go ahead and make sure you get in touch with Allen.'”
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“Allen” refers to Allen Weisberg, then-Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization, who was recently imprisoned for lying in Trump’s recent civil fraud trial. Weisberg previously pleaded guilty to tax evasion offenses for which he was also imprisoned.
Cohen submitted $35,000 in invoices each month for what he described as legal services fees, which he said were actually “reimbursement for hush money and [another expense] And a bonus.”
Hoffinger examined all invoices and payment documents and asked Cohen whether they were for legal services or were fake. Cohen repeatedly asserted that the invoices and payment descriptions in emails and business documents were, in fact, fake.
“Anything I did was at the direction and for the benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen said once among many statements directly implicating Mr. Trump. “It all had to be approved by Mr. Trump.”
Daniels’ explosive testimony undermines Trump’s denial that she had a sexual encounter with him after a celebrity golf event in Lake Tahoe nearly two decades ago. After turning down an invitation to dinner from Trump, Daniels decided to go on the advice of a colleague who said it would make a good story.
Daniels said she went to Trump’s hotel room and decided to chat before eating something, during which Trump repeatedly asked her about her work as an adult film performer, asking questions like: “What about testing? Are you worried about STIs?” and “Have you been tested?”
“Of course, I did that voluntarily,” Daniels said. “He asked me, ‘Oh, so have you ever had a bad test?’ And I said, ‘No, I can show you all my records.'”
At one point, Trump began showing Daniels photos, including one of Melania Trump, to which Daniels reportedly commented that Trump’s wife was “very beautiful,” but added that Melania shouldn’t worry because “we don’t even sleep in the same room.”
The two spoke about Trump’s show “The Apprentice,” with Daniels saying she would never be able to make it on TV because of her job.
“You remind me of my daughter. She’s smart, blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her,” Daniels recalled Trump saying.
Ms Daniels left to go to the bathroom at the end of the bedroom and emerged to find Mr Trump in bed wearing only his underwear and a T-shirt.
“At first I was shocked, like I was shocked,” Daniels said. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God, what did I get myself into?’ Someone’s lying in bed in their underwear, so the intent is pretty clear.”
She said Daniels tried to leave but was standing between her and the door, though he was not in a threatening manner.
“He said, ‘I thought we were doing well, and if you wanted to get out of the trailer park, I knew you were serious about what you wanted…'” Daniels testified. “I’d never lived in a trailer park, so I was offended.” Daniels said the two had sex.
The hotel room encounter was described as disturbing and horrifying, one of the prosecutors argued in his closing argument, but that’s exactly why Trump tried so hard to cover up the story – and so he covered up those facts.
“It is entirely possible that the scheme these men hatched at this point led to President Trump’s election,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.
