Historical. Donald Trump became the first former American president to be criminally indicted on Thursday, March 30, by a citizen grand jury in Manhattan. If the precise indictment will remain secret until next Tuesday, the day of Trump's appearance in New York, the case concerns a financial agreement with an actress and director of pornographic films, "Stormy Daniels", with whom the real estate mogul allegedly had an affair in 2006.
What is the Stormy Daniels affair?
The affair was made public in 2018 by revelations from the Wall Street Journal on a possible $130,000 non-disclosure agreement between Donald Trump and Stephanie Clifford, actress and director of pornographic films known under the stage name Stormy Daniels. She allegedly had a sexual relationship with him in 2006, on the sidelines of a golf tournament which they both attended. Trump had then been married for a year to his third wife, Melania.
The actress first mentioned this affair in 2011 in an interview with In Touch magazine, which canceled publication after threats of prosecution from Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer. The interview would not be made public until seven years later, the day after the Wall Street Journal revelations. Meanwhile, in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign, the actress would have sought to monetize her story to the media. Alerted by an official from the National Enquirer tabloid – which had shortly before purchased the story of a similar adventure with the model Karen McDougal, to better bury it – Michael Cohen contacted Stephanie Clifford and concluded an agreement with her, just ten days before Election Day.
What can Trump be accused of?
If such an agreement is not illicit in itself, Trump and his company (the Trump Organization) are suspected of having falsified the documentation of the reimbursement of the sums incurred to his lawyer, in order to pass them off as simple legal expenses. A maneuver which would then amount to a disguised donation to an electoral campaign – much higher than the authorized legal ceiling – since the challenge was then to prevent the predictable scandal from damaging the chances of candidate Trump.
The content of the proceedings brought against the ex-president, as well as their classification as an offense or crime, cannot however be precisely determined until they have been formalized by the Manhattan prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. It was the latter who reactivated this case at the beginning of this year by convening a grand jury, while the investigations by the New York justice system had long remained in limbo. If the indictment were to lead to a trial – probably not for several months, or even a year – Donald Trump could face up to four years in prison for illegal campaign financing.
The former head of state denies any affair with Stephanie Clifford and her involvement in the transaction concluded to stifle what he describes as an “extortion” campaign. Denials contradicted for years by Michael Cohen, who broke with his former boss in 2018 to become one of his most virulent critics. He himself pleaded guilty to violations of electoral law, bank and tax fraud, and perjury, which earned him a three-year prison sentence at the end of 2018. He then notably revealed a recording of a conversation with Trump in the middle of the 2016 campaign, attesting to his involvement in paying Karen McDougal to buy her silence.
(to be continued)
