Prosecutors accused former President Donald Trump of operating a “criminal conspiracy” to “corrupt” the 2016 election in their opening arguments Monday, as the first criminal trial against the former president got underway in earnest to determined whether he falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Former President Donald Trump sits at the defendant's table for his trial for allegedly covering up ... [+]
Opening arguments began Monday in Trump’s criminal trial, in which he faces 34 counts of falsifying business records based on payments he made reimbursing ex-attorney Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 right before the 2016 election to cover up her allegations she and Trump had an affair.
“This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a coverup,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the jury, according to Politico, accusing Trump of “orchestrat[ing] a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” and then “lying over and over and over again” to cover up the alleged scheme in his business records.
Colangelo described Trump and Cohen’s alleged scheme with former American Media CEO David Pecker to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump during the 2016 election, and told the jury they would hear a recorded phone call between Trump and Cohen about allegations made by model Karen McDougal that she and Trump had an affair—which resulted in AMI paying McDougal $150,000 to silence her allegations.
Prosecutors described the “Access Hollywood” tape made public before the 2016 election—in which Trump claimed to “grab [women] by the pussy”—alleging the Trump campaign went into “damage control mode” after the tape’s release and believed that Daniels’ allegations becoming public could be “devastating” to the campaign, according to CNN and The New York Times.
Trump’s hush money scheme “was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo told the jury Monday, as quoted by The Times. According to CNN, the prosecutor told the jury that Daniels’ lawyer texted the editor-in-chief of The National Enquirer on Election Night in 2016, “What have we done?”
The trial is expected to last for approximately six weeks. After opening arguments wrap up, prosecutors are expected to call Pecker as their first witness. Other potential witnesses who could take the stand include Cohen, Daniels and such key Trump allies as ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani, former advisors Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, and Trump’s children Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. It remains unclear if Trump will testify at the trial, though he has told reporters he will.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, decrying the case as a “witch hunt” meant to interfere with his presidential campaign and claiming that his payments to Cohen were personal expenses that did not violate the law. His attorneys will make their opening arguments in court later on Monday.
Trump was indicted in March 2023 following a yearslong investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office over the “hush money” payments. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in the weeks before the 2016 election, and Trump then allegedly reimbursed Cohen $420,000—for the Daniels payment, a separate expense, a $60,000 bonus and enough money to cover the taxes on the payment. Prosecutors allege Trump paid Cohen through a series of monthly $35,000 payments disguised as legal payments through a retainer agreement. The first payments were allegedly made through the Trump Organization, while Trump allegedly paid the last nine personally out of his own bank account, though his company facilitated the transfer to Cohen. Trump’s trial comes after Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations stemming from the Daniels payment.