Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Prosecutor claims Trump responsible for ‘election fraud’
DONALD Trump tried to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, a prosecutor told jurors yesterday at the start of the former president’s historic hush money trial.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said: “This was a planned, longrunning conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behaviour.
“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
A defence lawyer countered by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who is now the government’s star witness.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should never have brought this case,” attorney Todd Blanche said.
Opening statements offered the 12-person jury – and the voting public – a roadmap for viewing the allegations at the heart of the case and Trump’s expected defences.
The attorneys previewed weeks of salacious and potentially unflattering testimony in a trial that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race.
Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and imprisonment.
The case is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.
Befitting that history, prosecutors sought from the outset to elevate the gravity of the case, which they said was chiefly about election interference as reflected by the hush money payments to an adult film actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
The trial, which could last up to two months, will require Trump to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail, a reality he complained about yesterday.
In the weeks ahead, the case will test the jury’s ability to judge him impartially but also Trump’s ability to comply with courtroom protocol, including a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses.
He faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records – a charge punishable by up to four years in prison – though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars.
A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty.
He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.