Trump May Face Criminal Charges for Stormy Daniels Hush Money as Manhattan DA Makes ‘Dramatic Escalation’ of Case
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
The Manhattan district attorney’s office will reportedly start presenting evidence to a grand jury as they prepare to consider criminal charges against Donald Trump over the Stormy Daniels saga.
CNN reported on Monday that David Pecker, a Trump ally and former publisher of the National Enquirer, was scheduled to have a meeting this week with Manhattan prosecutors who are investigating the former president. The New York Times followed up with their own report stating Pecker and his lawyer were seen at the building where a grand jury was impaneled for the case of Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star while running for president.
“The grand jury was recently impaneled, and witness testimony will soon begin, a clear signal that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump,” the Times reported. “Mr. Bragg’s decision to impanel a grand jury focused on the hush money — supercharging the longest-running criminal investigation into Mr. Trump — represents a dramatic escalation in an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end.”
The case surrounds the longstanding allegation that the former president violated campaign finance laws by organizing payments to pay off Daniels and prevent her from going public with her story about his affair with her. Pecker’s involvement stems from how he allegedly worked with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to set up a “catch and kill” arrangement to pay Daniels off and keep the story suppressed. Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal campaign finance charges from the payout.
The Times reports that the prosecutors subpoenaed phone records and are reaching out to former Trump campaign officials in an apparent effort to corroborate witness accounts from the saga. This also ties in with other financial fraud investigations into Trump’s business life.
“A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Mr. Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election, a low-level felony charge that would be based on a largely untested legal theory,” the Times says. “The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who made the payment and who himself pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money in 2018.”
