The Donald J. Trump Charges: Falsifying New York Business Records in the Era of a 2016 Presidential Election Proposal and a Political Campaign to End Its Obstruction
The 34 felony charges, which Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to, turned out to be much more significant and sweeping than had been thought. The Manhattan district attorney described a conspiracy with Donald Trump and others that involved faking business records to influence the presidential election. The former president orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by using negative information against him, in order to suppress its publication and benefit his electoral prospects, he said.
“The defendant Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” read the statement of facts that accompanied the indictment.
According to prosecutors, the checks were processed by the Trump Organization and used as monthly payment for legal services. “In truth, there was no retainer agreement,” reads a statement of fact that accompanied the charges.
Bragg said in a press release thatManhattan is the country’s most significant business market. “We cannot allow New York businesses to manipulate their records to cover up criminal conduct.”
Prosecutors cited three occasions in which they say Trump “orchestrated” such a scheme with executives at American Media Inc., the company that publishes the National Enquirer. All three took place after Trump announced his candidacy for president in June of 2015.
Cohen said that Trump and his business would reimburse the publisher. (On the advice of AMI’s general counsel, that reimbursement never took place.)
When the story was not true, executives agreed not to release the doorman from the agreement until after the election, and that’s according to prosecutors.
The charges show that Mr. Bragg will try to persuade a jury that there was a conspiracy between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen. It wasn’t certain until Tuesday that the relationship would be part of the case. The felony charges are specifically about Ms. Daniels, but to prove them, Mr. Bragg made it clear that he would describe a much broader pattern of payoffs that included Ms. McDougal.
Trump went on to group the indictment — stemming from a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign — with various other legal and political threats he’s faced, dismissing them all.
In a news conference held after Trump’s appearance in court on Tuesday afternoon, Bragg clarified what prosecutors view as two possible other crimes in the Trump case.
The first is New York state election law, “which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means,” Bragg said. In this case, that “could include” false statements, like the misrepresentation to tax authorities of the payments to Michael Cohen.
Trump, who was twice impeached as president and still secured a record-breaking number of electoral votes, tried to capitalize on the narrative potential of his day in court.
He departed the courthouse in a motorcade that major cable news networks tracked with helicopter footage. His 2024 election campaign began offering a T-shirt with a fake mug shot for a $47 donation.
After a full day of media coverage, Donald Trump took to the stage at Mar-a-Lago to speak to his supporters about the charges as political persecution.
“I never thought anything like this would happen in America,” Trump said to kick off his speech. It’s the only crime I have committed and that’s defending our nation from those who are trying to destroy it.
Trump dismissed the other investigations and said the county’s prosecutor had no case, and attacked the Judge and his family as “Trump-hating” people.
The Mueller investigation of a hush money payment indictment against Donald Trump in New York and a possible push for a political agenda
Despite being on high alert throughout the day, Manhattan saw only small gatherings of Trump supporters near the courthouse, with reporters largely outnumbering the protestors.
People for Trump are showing their support in other ways. His campaign raised $10 million as a result of the indictment, according to his adviser.
Across the GOP, Trump’s allies and his critics adopted similar messaging, with even Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, accusing Bragg of pushing “a political agenda.”
And as a measure of how that messaging lands, a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday found that two-thirds of all respondents think that the charges in New York are not that serious. The investigation is politically motivated according to six in 10.
The next big court date was set for December 4. The prosecution is pushing for opening arguments to begin sometime in January 2024, but Trump’s defense asked for a few more months, maybe sometime in spring 2024. That’s right in the heart of primary season, which could complicate the former president’s reelection bid.
The defense may try to delay the case and move the venue out of Manhattan where voters overwhelmingly voted against Donald Trump in the election.
Carrie Johnson, NPR’s Justice Correspondent, said that legal experts expected the Manhattan cases to be the weakest.
And just before Tuesday’s hearing in New York, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., allowed a Department of Justice investigation into Trump to proceed. The court ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith can question top Trump aides on his actions in Jan. 6 and handling of classified documents, Johnson reports.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating former president Donald Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.
Each criminal charge relates to a specific entry in the Trump Organization’s business records, according to the indictment. Prosecutors accuse Trump of repeatedly causing false entries in the business records.
One of the things Trump would respond with was fury and insinuation to cause more trouble in a troubled nation that could hurt vital political and judicial institutions.
Both of those worst-of-all-worlds scenarios came true on a day that Trump described as “SURREAL” in a social media post sent as he motorcaded to court to turn himself in. The result is that another grim and even tragic chapter may lie ahead for a country that is still far from working through the fallout from Trump’s single term as it girds for yet another bitter election.
One of the most portentous days in American legal history began with the ex-president leaving his skyscraper home in the city where he found fame as a real estate shark and tabloid-filling celebrity but that was now set to place him under arrest.
Trump walked slowly through the door of the courthouse and was taken to be fingerprinted. News photographs showed the once-most-powerful man in the world seated at a table with lawyers like any other case, and with a face like thunder.
Trump kept silent in court, saying little other than “not guilty,” and he didn’t speak to reporters after the hearing. But by the time he swapped the spartan decor of the courtroom for friendly turf, under the crystal chandeliers in his gold-leafed resort in Florida, Trump was ready to erupt.
He yelled, “Our country is going to Hell” in a rant filled with conspiracy theories and ranted against prosecutors in other, potentially more serious investigations than the one in Manhattan.
An investigation in Georgia into election interference and a DOJ investigation into his handling of classified documents are three of the legal threats that Trump went to attack.
The Manhattan case is scheduled for another hearing on December 4 and the other cases could address more grave constitutional questions. The day a president is accused of a crime will always be remembered but there is a chance that it may be seen as a sign of trouble for Trump.
Observers on the political side have questioned the legal theory that underlies Bragg’s case. As The New York Times reported in March, “Combining the criminal charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.” Trump, in other words, may still wriggle out of this predicament.
The charging documents say that Trump and his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, worked with American Media Inc. to make payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal as well to a doorman at Trump Tower. Hush money payouts are not illegal. But Bragg, a Democrat, alleges that Trump falsified business records to hide the payments. The transgressions would be just a bit more serious. If books were cooked to hide criminal conduct connected to the 2016 campaign, a felony can be charged, suggested Bragg.
There was disappointment among the veteran law enforcement officers that the Bragg indictment and statement of facts had not been as specific as needed in order to charge Trump with a felony.
We were hoping that they would give more information about the direction that they intend to take the prosecution, but what about the legal theory surrounding the intent to conceal another crime? McCabe said.
If all of our legal friends read the indictment and don’t see a way to convict them, it’s hard to convince a jury that they should get there.
He said at the news conference that they wouldn’t approve of serious criminal conduct. The bread and butter of his office’s work is cases like these, he said.
“At its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white collar cases. Allegations that someone lied again, and again, to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable,” Bragg said.
The legal case will play out in court. It will also have important political repercussions due to Trump’s status as a former president who wants to return to the White House in 2024.
“I believe President Trump’s character and conduct make him unfit for office. Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda,” Romney said.
Like any American in his position, Trump should have the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. He can use every legal option at his disposal and try to dismiss the case before it reaches a trial, unlike many other defendants.
It was not one of Mr. Trump’s best speeches. The Mar-a-Lago crowd, while friendly, wasn’t the kind of roaring mass of fans from which Mr. Trump draws energy, and the former president sounded heavily scripted. The address was offensive, in part, because it targeted individuals leading investigations into Mr. Trump, as well as their families. (Seriously, what was with all the wife bashing?) He said that the officials were out to get him. He went on a bizarre riff about how President Biden had hidden a bunch of documents in Chinatown. And his repeated attacks on the “lunatic” Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal investigations of Mr. Trump, suggest that whole business is really chafing the former president’s backside.
Tuesday night was Mr. Trump’s first chance to address the criminal charges against him — his first real opportunity to counterpunch — since the New York indictment came down. Safely back in the gilded cocoon of Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by American flags and supporters sporting red hats and campaign signs, he delivered a half-hour battle cry that was painfully on brand: a greatest hits of his witch-hunt grievances interwoven with his dark take on how the country is “going to hell” without him. There is a chance of an all out nuclear World War III. “It can happen! We are not very far away from it. The investigation of his squirreling away of sensitive papers at Mar-a-Lago could lead to his execution, he suggested.
He is following in the footsteps of some of the world’s most notorious demagogues by damaging trust in institutions that seek to control his behavior. Trump’s talent for such propaganda is underscored by the way that he has convinced millions of his supporters that the last election was corrupt.
The indictment of Trump may help him politically, at least from a short-term perspective. His campaign has said fundraising dollars have been pouring in since the grand jury voted to indict him last week. And Trump’s opponents and potential rivals for the GOP nomination have had little choice but to line up and criticize Bragg over his actions if they want to avoid alienating Trump’s base.
But months ahead of the GOP primary, it’s impossible to know how Tuesday’s events will play out. More extreme Trump gets, the more popular he becomes with base voters.
But the past also has less favorable political lessons for the ex-president. The extremism that he displayed on Tuesday night to a primetime television audience was exactly the brand of radicalism that contributed to disappointing Republican finishes in the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms.
Over the last two days I have found a lack of excitement in New York. Many who detest Trump, I suspect, have lost faith in the ability of the legal system to hold him to account. And while his supporters may threaten civil war, not many of them seem willing to brave Manhattan, which they’ve been told is a crime-ridden hellhole.
This uncomfortable reality is actually something for every member of the G.O.P. to think about. Again. Because, if Mr. Trump’s prime-time, post-arraignment remarks on Tuesday were any indication, this is going to be a central theme of his third presidential run — one that promises to relegate everyone else in the party, including those considering a 2024 run themselves, to being minor players in this latest, tawdriest season of “The Trump Show.”
Get ready for more of this magic. Because of the legal troubles Mr. Trump is facing, the investigations will eat at him and distract him. He will put other Republicans in an awkward position of having to defend him, because of the large amount of his campaign that will be about his martyrdom. And they won’t really have any choice as he whips his devoted followers into a frenzy over his persecution — and, of course, by extension, theirs.
That is certainly what we have seen happening. Republicans have been lining up to trash the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. It was in no way surprising to see Representative Lauren Boebert comparing the indictment of Mr. Trump to the actions of Mussolini and, yes, Hitler. But one might have expected slightly more from Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely regarded as the biggest threat to Mr. Trump’s 2024 ambitions, than his pathetic vow to refuse to assist any effort to extradite Mr. Trump to New York. Weak, Ron. Very weak.
Mr. Bragg said he would cite a number of state laws. The payments to Ms. Daniels were made by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who was reimbursed by Mr. Trump in a fraudulent way, the prosecution said. The charging document states that the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme was mischaracterized as income in order to hide it from tax authorities. So add state tax violations to the list.
Trump said, of the case being led by Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis, that she is “doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call, even more perfect than the one I made with the president of Ukraine.”
“I will get Trump” said Trump while condemning New York’s attorney general investigation into the Trump Organization. I will get him. This was her campaign. Never ran for office. I’m going to get him. Her name is Letitia James,” he said.
Toward the end of his remarks, Trump returned to criticizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the charges leveled against him Tuesday in New York.