Donald Trump has made history to become the first former United States President to be arrested for crimes committed while in office.
He personally pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan court to 34-felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree after hearing charges against him stemming from a hush money payment to an adult film actress in 2016.
Prosecutors alleged Trump was a part of an “illegal conspiracy” to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election and was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing and his lawyers have said they’ll fight to get the charges dropped. The former president, who has vowed to continue his 2024 bid, is slated to fly back to Florida after the arraignment and speak tonight at Mar-a-Lago
Trump allegedly hid reimbursement payments to Michael Cohen by marking monthly cheques for “legal services,” according to the statement of facts, in a deal the two worked out in the Oval Office.
“In early February 2017, the Defendant and Lawyer A met in the Oval Office at the White House and confirmed this repayment arrangement,” the statement of facts said referring to Cohen.
Trump personally signed checks reimbursing Cohen, his attorney at the time, for the hush-money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, the statement of facts said.
The payment included $130,000 for Daniels in exchange for her signature on a non-disclosure agreement.
He also allegedly agreed to pay Cohen $35,000 monthly for one year, the prosecutors alleged.
The document also detailed how two of the payments were made from a trust set up in Trump’s name, but nine subsequent ones, “corresponding to the months of April through December of 2017, were paid by the Defendant personally.”
“Each of the cheques was cut from the defendant’s bank account and sent, along with the corresponding invoices from Lawyer A, from the Trump Organisation in New York County to the Defendant in Washington, D.C. The checks and stubs bearing the false statements were stapled to the invoices also bearing false statements. The defendant signed each of the checks personally and had them sent back to the Trump Organization in New York County,” the statement of facts says. The payments stopped after December 2017, according to the document.
Meanwhile Trump’s plane took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport shortly after 4 p.m. ET, ending a whirlwind 24 hours culminating in his personally pleading not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
In another development, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a news conference Tuesday that his office uncovered “additional evidence” that was not in their possession prior to his time as district attorney related to the case against Trump.
Speaking about the timing of the charges – and his predecessor’s decision not to bring charges against Trump in this case — Bragg said “I don’t bring cases prior to a thorough and rigorous investigation.”
“Now, having done so, the case has been brought,” Bragg said.
“I’ve been doing this for 24 years, and I’m no stranger to rigorous complex investigations,” the DA noted.
Bragg said that the state of New York in particular has a “profound interest” in cases involving false business statements because it is the “business capital of the world.”
Participants in the alleged illegal hush-money scheme, including Michael Cohen, admitted payoffs to the two women were unlawful, according to the statement of facts released Tuesday.
In late 2018, American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of New York’s US Attorney’s office relating to paying Karen McDougal for her story about Trump, the statement of facts said.
AMI told authorities they never intended to publish McDougal’s story and made the payment to McDougal so that she “did not publicize damaging allegations” about Donald Trump “before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election,” according to the statement of facts.
The document also cites Cohen’s federal guilty plea, which said Cohen worked at the direction of Trump to arrange payment for the two women, McDougal and Stormy Daniels, to stop stories that could be harmful to Trump
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a press conference following the arraignment of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
