Unpacking Trump’s case

Lawyers offered opening arguments in the criminal trial of Donald Trump on Monday (US time) in Manhattan, beginning the process of presenting the state’s case against the former president.

The jury will ultimately be asked not whether Trump is guilty of a crime in the abstract but instead whether the state provided enough evidence to eliminate any doubt that he violated the letter of the law.

Trump is charged with 34 felonies, each predicated on his having allegedly falsified records. Prosecutors say he caused the Trump Organisation and his personal trust to record payments made to lawyer Michael Cohen in 2017 as retainer fees, not reimbursements for the US$130,000 (NZ$220,000) Cohen paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

Falsifying business records is not always a felony. But if the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof”, the New York criminal statute reads, it can be charged as one.

So what is the “another crime?” . Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg was somewhat vague, saying that the intent was “to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public”.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the crime was centred on Cohen’s payment. “This was a planned, co-ordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election to help Trump get elected through illegal expenditures, to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior ... It was election fraud.”

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, rejected that idea. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election; it’s called democracy.”