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Trump trial live updates: Prosecutors to make opening statements in hush money case
The first of Donald Trump’s four criminal trials is underway in New York on April 15. Here is a look at some of the key figures in the case. (AP Video: Ted Shaffrey)
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Opening statements in Donald Trump‘s hush money trial are set to begin in a New York court on Monday. For the first time in history, prosecutors will present a criminal case against a former American president to a jury, accusing Trump of a scheme to prevent damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public.
Here’s who could be called to testify
MICHAEL COHEN — Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. He was once a fierce Trump ally, but now he’s a key prosecution witness against his former boss. Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations relating to the hush money arrangements and other, unrelated crimes.
STORMY DANIELS — The porn actor who received a $130,000 payment from Cohen as part of his hush-money efforts. Cohen paid Daniels to keep quiet about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
KAREN MCDOUGAL — A former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. She was paid $150,000 in 2016 by the parent company of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship. Trump denies having sex with McDougal.
DAVID PECKER — The National Enquirer’s former publisher and a longtime Trump friend. Prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
HOPE HICKS — Trump’s former White House communications director. Prosecutors say she spoke with Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leaked weeks before the 2016 election. In the tape, from 2005, Trump boasted about grabbing women without permission.
▶ Read more about the key players in Trump’s hush money trial.
Jail time is just one of the stakes Trump faces
Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media alongside his attorney Todd Blanche, right, as they exit the courtroom following proceedings in his trial, Friday, April 19, 2024, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. (Mark Peterson/Pool Photo via AP)
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and could face four years in prison if convicted, though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to attempt to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Unfolding as Trump vies to reclaim the White House, the trial will require him to spend his days in a courtroom rather than the campaign trail. He will have to listen as witnesses recount salacious and potentially unflattering details about his private life.
Trump has nonetheless sought to turn his criminal defendant status into an asset for his campaign, fundraising off his legal jeopardy and repeatedly railing against a justice system that he has for years claimed is weaponized against him.
WATCH: Jury selection wrapped on Friday
The final jurors have been seated in Donald Trump’s hush money trial and opening statements are set for Monday after an appellate judge rejected the former president’s latest bid to halt the case.
A quick reminder of what this case is about
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a chapter from Trump’s past when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he sought to prevent potentially damaging stories from surfacing through hush money payments.
One such payment was a $130,000 sum that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, gave to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from emerging into public shortly before the 2016 election.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
To convict Trump of a felony, prosecutors must show he not only falsified or caused business records to be entered falsely, which would be a misdemeanor, but that he did so to conceal another crime.
Prosecutors to make history with today’s opening statements
FILE – Former President Donald Trump waits the start of proceedings on the second day of jury selection at Manhattan criminal court, April 16, 2024, in New York. (Curtis Means/DailyMail.com via AP, Pool)
For the first time in history, prosecutors will present a criminal case against a former American president to a jury as they accuse Donald Trump of a hush money scheme aimed at preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public.
A 12-person jury in Manhattan is set to hear opening statements today from prosecutors and defense lawyers in the first of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee to reach trial.
The statements are expected to give jurors and the voting public the clearest view yet of the allegations at the heart of the case, as well as insight into Trump’s expected defense.
Court is scheduled to be back in session at 9:30 a.m. ET.