Former US President and controversial Republican frontrunner Donald Trump faces thirty-four felony counts in a New York court. He’s been charged with paying people off to prevent them from spreading stories that could harm his reputation.
Trump and his associates have been accused of operating what the prosecution calls a “catch and kill” scheme in which they intercept people and pay them off before they can tell the public about Trump’s alleged actions. For instance, Trump has been accused of bribing adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from telling the media about a supposed affair between them.
Felony Charges
The charges against Trump have been escalated to felonies because the prosecution believes that he committed campaign finance violations and then engaged in business fraud to cover up evidence of the other crimes. In the state of New York, fraud is a felony if it’s committed in the interest of obfuscating the existence of other criminal activity.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg told reporters that Trump’s hush-money payments themselves didn’t constitute criminal activity. However, falsifying business records to cover up the existence of those payments made both the payments themselves and the criminal fraud offenses.
How Strong is the Case?
The grand jury’s decision to indict Trump and Bragg’s insistence on bringing the case to trial could indicate that the DA’s office feels their case is airtight. “In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York,” Bragg recently wrote.
“The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.” Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges, setting up what is sure to be a protracted and partisan court battle.
More than Just Daniels and Cohen
Interestingly, the unsealed court documents show that Bragg’s case doesn’t just rely on the payments to Stormy Daniels or the statements from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The DA’s office has a broad, documented case with a paper trail that includes checks from Trump and ledgers from the Trump Organization.
Trump has called the case against him politically motivated and contends that he’s done nothing wrong. If he’s convicted on all counts, he could spend as long as 136 years in prison. Such an outcome seems unlikely, however, as even if he is convicted, the prosecution will likely settle for a shorter prison sentence.
