Manhattan melodrama for former Republican president has cast of 11 leading players

The investigation into former US president Donald Trump stems from a hush-money payment he allegedly authorised to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Here, The National takes a look at the central figures in the indictment of Mr Trump:

Donald Trump

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

“I never had an affair with Stormy Daniels,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social network on March 9.

He was one of the Republican front-runners in 2016 when he allegedly approved a $130,000 pay-off to Daniels so she would not make their affair public.

In tweets on May 3, 2018, Mr Trump said “the agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair … despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair”.

Stormy Daniels

Daniels, below, born Stephanie Clifford in 1979, told CBS in 2018 that she and Mr Trump met at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006.

She told 60 Minutes she had met the then-Apprentice host at his hotel suite, where they had a sexual encounter.

She said they met once more at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles to discuss an appearance on the TV programme Celebrity Apprentice.

When it became clear that Mr Trump would win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, a lawyer for Daniels told the National Enquirer that she was willing to make her story public.

Before the 2016 election, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen gave Daniels $130,000 in a lump-sum payment.

In exchange, Daniels would sign a non-disclosure agreement in which she would not reveal her alleged encounter with Mr Trump. Daniels said she felt pressured to sign the agreement and tried to have it nullified by a lawyer in 2018.

Alvin Bragg

Mr Bragg is Manhattan’s District Attorney, whose job is to prosecute all criminal cases in that borough of New York.

The Democrat was elected in 2022 after serving as a federal prosecutor, an assistant attorney general for New York state and a civil rights lawyer.

Mr Bragg inherited the Trump case and convened a grand jury after convicting Mr Trump’s family company for tax fraud.

Three Republicans in the House of Representatives wrote to the Manhattan District in recent weeks, accusing the court and Mr Bragg of a “politically motivated prosecution”.

Judge Juan Merchan

Mr Merchan is the judge presiding in the case and a veteran of the New York court system with more than 15 years on the bench.

He is no stranger to cases involving Mr Trump and his associates, having overseen the criminal tax fraud case against his company.

Mr Merchan also sentenced Allen Weisselberg, Mr Trump’s aide and former chief financial officer of two Trump organisations, to prison.

He also oversaw a fraud case that involved former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

Karen McDougal

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal gained attention when she alleged she had a sexual relationship with Mr Trump for at least 10 months. He has denied the relationship.

She gave the details to American Media’s National Enquirer, which reportedly paid her $150,000 in 2016 to “catch and kill” her story during Mr Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Clark Brewster

“No man is above the law,” Mr Brewster, Daniels’s lawyer, said after Mr Trump’s indictment. The Oklahoman lawyer has served as Daniels’ counsel after she cut ties with celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti, who was eventually disbarred for embezzlement and fraud.

Mr Brewster helped to co-ordinate Daniels’ co-operation with investigators and prosecutors in New York.

Robert Costello

Mr Costello was one of the last people to testify before the grand jury, for his role as a legal adviser to Cohen. He was vocal about the credibility of Cohen as a witness in the hush money payments.

“If they want to go after Donald Trump and they have solid evidence then so be it,” Mr Costello told MSNBC in March. “But Michael Cohen is far from solid evidence.”

Mr Costello has represented Trump allies Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.

Michael Cohen

Cohen, above, was Mr Trump’s lawyer from 2006 to 2018 and was widely recognised as the former president’s “fixer”.

In 2018, he was jailed for three years for what the presiding judge called a “smorgasbord” of fraudulent crimes, including hush-money payments to women claiming to have had affairs with Mr Trump.

Cohen said that he expected “complete and total mayhem” to surround the arraignment of Mr Trump.

David Pecker

Formerly the National Enquirer publisher as chief executive of American Media, Mr Pecker was reportedly one of the last people to testify before the grand jury.

The company shared that, under his leadership, there was a “catch and kill” tactic to buy the exclusive Daniels story and suppress it in the media.

He also reportedly had a part in connecting Cohen with Daniels for the hush money payment.

Joe Tacopina

Mr Tacopina is one of Mr Trump’s lawyers and the founder and managing partner of New York’s Tacopina, Seigel and DeOreo law firm

He began his career as a prosecutor in Brooklyn, one of New York’s five boroughs, before becoming a defence lawyer.

He was initially hired by the Trump team in January to defend him against a civil lawsuit brought by writer E Jean Carroll, who said Mr Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.

As for the current indictment, Mr Tacopina told Fox News: “I’ve never been more angry about a charge because today, the rule of law in the United States of America died. It’s dead.”

Although he said Mr Trump was “shocked” by the indictment, he said his client was “ready to fight”.

Allen Weisselberg

Weisselberg is the Trump Organisation’s former chief financial officer. He pleaded guilty for conspiring with the company as part of tax fraud over the course of 15 years.

He was responsible for managing the company’s financial records, and may have had a role in covering up how the hush money payment was given to Daniels by Cohen.

Weisselberg is in prison over Trump Organisation conspiracy charges.