Trump payoff ‘tainted election’
DONALD Trump orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election by overseeing a hush money deal to a porn star, a court has heard.
In opening statements of the former president’s criminal trial, Trump was accused of lying repeatedly by disguising business records to cover up a €122,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.
The actress, real name Stephanie Clifford, claims she had sex with Trump shortly after the birth of his son Baron to wife Melania.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said: “The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.
“Then he covered up that criminal consp-iracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again. It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
He added that Trump, former attorney Michael Cohen and National Enquirer boss David Pecker worked to kill damaging stories about him in the run-up to the election, in which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
Mr Colangelo said the allegations would be backed up by testimony from witnesses and an extensive paper trail, including bank records, emails, texts, phone logs and business records.
He said Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms Daniels’ story to prevent it from becoming public before the election.
At the heart of the allegations is a payment made to Ms Daniels, who had been in talks with the National Enquirer, by Cohen. Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of such payments in internal business documents.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Ms Daniels and pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Defence attorneys said the Manhattan district attorney’s office “should never have brought this case”.
Trump’s lawyer,
Todd Blanche, accused Cohen – jailed in 2018 for campaign finance charges and lying to Congress – of being “obsessed” with his former boss. Mr Blanche told jurors: “You cannot make a serious decision about President Trump relying on the words of Michael Cohen.”
The start of the evidence set the stage for weeks of testimony about Trump’s personal life.
The 77-year-old property tycoon is the front-runner to be the Republican candidate to face President Joe Biden in November’s election.
He lied over and over.. it’s election fraud, pure and simple MATTHEW COLANGELO, PROSECUTING TRUMP