In historic first, former US president Trump faces criminal trial
Donald Trump became the first former US president to stand trial in a criminal case on Monday when he appeared in a Manhattan court to face charges stemming from a hushmoney payment to an adult star that could complicate his bid to win back the White House.
Wearing his signature blue suit and red tie, Trump, 77, sat expressionless at the defence table with his attorneys while photographers snapped his picture. Justice Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial, entered about half an hour later.
Trump is required to attend the trial, which is expected to last through May. The selection of 12 jurors and six alternates from a pool of Manhattan residents is expected to take about a week, followed by witness testimony.
Within minutes, Merchan denied Trump’s second bid to have the judge recuse himself from the case, on the basis that his daughter’s work for a political consulting firm with Democratic clients poses a conflict of interest.
New York state prosecutors accuse the former president of falsifying records to cover up a $130,000 payment in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign to buy the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels about a 2006 sexual encounter she has said they had. Trump has denied any such relationship.
He pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsification of business records in the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, in New York state court last year. Police stood guard in front of the courthouse amid a maze of barricades, and helicopters shadowed the motorcade of black SUVs that ferried Trump, the Republican candidate in the 2024 White House race, from his Trump Tower apartment. A handful of protesters, gathered in the plaza across the street, carried hand-painted signs reading “loser” and “convict Trump already”.
Though this case is regarded as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions he faces, some legal experts say it is the only one guaranteed to go to trial before the November 5 election.
Donald Trump goes on trial on Monday (April 15) for allegedly covering up hush money payments to hide affairs ahead of the 2016 presidential election which propelled him into the White House.
He will become the first former US president to go on criminal trial when jury selection begins next week.
As Trump closed in on victory in the 2016 presidential election, adult film star Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual tryst with Trump. The payments, made by Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, were revealed by The Wall Street Journal in Jan 2018.
Prosecutors have seized on concealment of the payments as “legal fees” in the Trump Organisation’s accounts when Cohen was reimbursed as the heart of their case.
Prosecutors say Trump “concealed the reason for these payments […] which clearly were paid in order to influence voters”, former prosecutor Bennett Gershman, now a lecturer at Pace University, said.
A New York grand jury indicted Trump in March last year over the payments made to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, with the ex-president charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. The case is being heard in a state-level court.
When the scandal broke, then-president Trump denied any relationship with Daniels, insisting he knew nothing about the payment, eventually claiming it was to thwart attempted extortion. He pleaded not guilty and attacked the trial as a political witch-hunt.
Trump’s lawyers will question the reliability of allyturned-enemy Cohen’s recall, and insist the case has no merit.