The prosecutor who leads the questioning of porn actress Stormy Daniels in former president Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial has a long history of donating to Democrats.
Susan Hoffinger, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, has donated to President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and a slew of other Democratic candidates, Federal Election Commission records show. Fox News first reported on Hoffinger’s donations.
Her donations to Biden’s presidential campaign took place during the Democratic primary. In February 2020 she donated $250, and the next month she gave another $250, the records show. During the 2020 cycle, she donated more than $900 to Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue and other Democratic candidates. Hoffinger’s donations to Democrats date back to 2004, beginning with John Kerry’s failed presidential campaign.
Hoffinger is not the only prosecutor with a partisan background in Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office. Top Trump prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, a former Biden Justice Department official, received payments from the Democratic National Committee for “political consulting” in 2018.
Daniels testified on Tuesday in Trump’s “hush-money” criminal trial about a $130,000 payment to Daniels from Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Cohen will be the star witness for the prosecution, despite his disbarment for pleading guilty to perjury.
While Daniels offered salacious details of her alleged sexual intercourse with Trump, her claims have little relevance to Trump’s criminal charges. Trump has denied Daniels’s allegations that they had an extramarital affair in 2006.
The graphic tabloid-fodder from Daniels prompted Trump’s attorneys to file a mistrial motion on Tuesday. Judge Juan Merchan quickly denied the motion on Tuesday afternoon and scolded the prosecution for pushing Daniels to recite the graphic details. The criminal trial has mostly focused on the sensational circumstances surrounding Cohen’s payment to Daniels and the prosecution’s attempt to portray it as a broader conspiracy.
Trump is facing 34 charges for falsifying business records of the payment to allegedly conceal underlying criminal acts. Bragg’s case against Trump rests on the allegation that Trump covered up campaign-finance violations, an alleged federal crime not being pursued by the Justice Department.
“This Witch Hunt is FALSE ANCIENT HISTORY that was fully adjudicated by the Voters in the 2016 Presidential Election,” Trump said on Truth Social on Tuesday afternoon, describing Bragg’s prosecution. “It only has to do with Election Interference, and trying to help Crooked Joe Biden get elected because he can’t do it by himself.”
Bragg is an elected Democrat and typically takes a progressive, soft-on-crime prosecutorial approach. Judge Merchan previously donated to Biden’s campaign, and his daughter is a veteran Democratic operative whose clients have fundraised off Trump’s criminal prosecution. Trump cannot criticize Merchan’s daughter under the terms of the expansive gag order placed by Merchan ahead of the criminal trial.
The judge threatened earlier this week to have Trump jailed if he continues to violate the gag order.