THE first criminal trial of a former US president has begun in New York, as Donald Trump defends himself against 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Prosecutors in New York say Trump concealed his connection to payments made on the eve of the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she says they had. The case asserts that records of the Trump Organization were falsified as part of a scheme to violate election laws. Trump, who is campaigning to regain the White House, has pleaded not guilty and denied the affair. 

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee tried to delay the Manhattan trial by asserting presidential immunity but failed. Meanwhile he faces criminal charges in Georgia over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden in that state. And he is accused of crimes in two federal cases, one over allegations of election interference and another over his handling of classified documents.

Here is what the New York charges, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, are about.

Payment to Stormy Daniels

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. He had married his third and current wife Melania the year before, and the couple had a new baby. In early October 2016, the Washington Post published an Access Hollywood recording in which Trump made lewd comments about women. 

Shortly afterward, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen learned that Daniels was threatening to go public with her story. He sent US$130,000 through a shell entity to a lawyer for Daniels, in return for a pledge that she wouldn’t talk about her relationship with Trump. Cohen later said he made the payment at the direction of Trump and to influence the 2016 election. He took out a home equity line of credit to make the payment. 

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Falsifying business records 

Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and violating campaign finance laws, has said that Trump reimbursed him for the US$130,000 transaction in monthly payments of US$35,000 in 2017, the first year Trump was in the White House. The 34 counts filed against Trump are related to those payments, which were recorded as legal expenses within the Trump Organization. 

While books and records violations on their own are misdemeanors in New York, they can be charged as felonies when committed in furtherance of another crime, in this case the violation of New York’s election laws. 

Violating election laws

In the context of a political campaign, money spent to silence unflattering information can be considered a campaign donation. Cohen was convicted in federal court of campaign violations in part because his payment to Daniels exceeded what was then the legal limit on an individual’s donation to a political candidate: US$2,700. 

Bragg alleges that Trump’s handling of the reimbursements to Cohen violated New York state election law, “which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.” BLOOMBERG