‘Buying silence is election fraud’: Prosecutors strike at Trump

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Is it legal to influence elections?

Prosecutors accuse the Republican of criminal conspiracy and covering up a sex scandal before the 2016 presidential election. “This was election fraud, pure and simple,” the defendant told jurors during opening statements Monday in the historic trial in New York.

In presenting the defense’s arguments, Trump’s lawyer said his client had committed no crimes and that it was not illegal to try to influence the election. “He is innocent,” argued the Republican’s lawyer.

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The main charges

Trump is accused of trying to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before he won the race for the White House in 2016. He is generally accused of falsifying documents to cover up campaign payments . And these, in turn, were done to keep his alleged lovers from sharing information about him.

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Trump has pleaded not guilty 34 charges in falsifying business documents and also denies having a sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

At the start of the second week of the criminal trial in Manhattan – the first ever of a former US president – each side laid out the arguments they will present to the jury. The first witness, tabloid publisher David Packer, also spoke briefly and will continue his testimony on Tuesday.

Photo: Getty Images

Falsification of documents

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the court that Michael Cohen – a former Trump attorney and confidant, worked with Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Alan Weiselberg to “draw up accounting documents” at the behest of Donald Trump himself. Prosecutors say the scheme to cover up how Cohen was compensated for the payment to Daniels involved falsifying three types of documents – invoices, accounting records and checks.

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Trump stated in his business filings that those payments were “for legal services pursuant to a fee agreement” with Cohen, Colangelo told the grand jury. “These were lies,” the prosecutor said. And he added – Trump was motivated to provide the bribe so that voters would not learn about the alleged meeting with Daniels.

Prosecutors said this cover-up should be considered election interference, which is a second offense. This, in effect, elevated the charge of falsifying business documents from a lower-level misdemeanor to a more serious felony.

Prosecutors say the infamous Access Hollywood tape, which surfaced weeks before the 2016 election and showed Trump boasting that he could have sex with anyone because he was famous, caused panic in his campaign. “The defendant and his campaign staff were deeply concerned that this would irreparably damage his authority, particularly among female voters,” Colangelo told the court, quoted by the BBC. But when Daniels came forward a day later claiming she had sex with Trump, it only compounded the problem created by the tape, Colangelo also argued.

Public disclosure “would have been devastating to his campaign, so at Trump’s behest, Cohen negotiated a deal,” he added. Prosecutors say Packer – the former head of American Media Inc, which owns the National Enquirer – and Cohen discussed how to keep quiet.

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What does Trump’s defense claim?

In comparison, the defense’s rebuttal was fairly simple. Trump’s lawyer was apparently intent on portraying the prosecution’s main witness — Cohen — as an untrustworthy former employee who has a “tooth” against the ex-president. “He’s a convicted felon and a convicted perjurer, he’s an admitted liar,” Todd Blanche said of Cohen.

He also took aim at Stormy Daniels, who he says made “hundreds of thousands” of dollars from her claims. The defense attorney told jurors to rule her out as a witness.

He went on to dismiss the examples of alleged fake records as “34 pieces of paper” unrelated to his client.

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As for prosecutors’ allegation of election interference, Blanche denies his client did anything illegal, even if he did try to influence voters. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election”, said Blanche. “This is called democracy”.

The trial is expected to last about six more weeks, but legal experts say opening statements are especially important as an opportunity to shape jurors’ views on the case.

“In a case like this you have to start strong,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the BBC. And he noted that the prosecution’s efforts to elevate this case to an election interference case could prove difficult before a two-lawyer jury.

“It is clear that the records were false commercial documents, but taking the next step to prove that they were in support of or to conceal a campaign finance contribution is a more difficult legal argument and according to I think they’re going to have to do a lot more than that. It’s going to come down to Michael Cohen,” he concluded, and whether his testimony backs up what he’s said in the past and whether he has the documents to prove it.

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