The former President Donald Trump’s indictment by a New York grand jury has thrust America into turbulent political, legal and historical waters. It has brought in a lot of embarrassment and, at the same time, raised many questions about how the criminal case will unfold.
The former President has had a controversial term as the serving President; however, Trump is a survivor and a fighter at that, who managed to win out and outrun each controversy, but it seems that this time the political and personal controversies may just have caught up with him.
The Porn Star Who Brought Donald Trump Down
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has started investigating Trump in connection with his plausible role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up concerning adult film star Stormy Daniels that goes back to the 2016 presidential election.
Stormy Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford, is a 44-year-old adult movie actress who has made quite a political scandal and created the perfect storm, the one in which Donald Trump has been caught and one that will leave a black mark on the legacy of the former President of the US.
She had claimed that former US. President Donald Trump paid her hush money ahead of the 2016 elections. According to reports, a colossal amount of 130,000 US. Dollars were paid to her just weeks before the election to stop her from going public with the apparent secret.
Stormy Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, a decade earlier and one year later after Trump married his third wife and former first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, who had just given birth to their child; Trump was 60 at the time.
However, the story doesn’t end here; another woman, a Playboy model Karen Mcdougal emerged from the closet with the same allegation. However, the allegations are serious and seem to be backed by the former President’s former longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in the form of Hush payments to two women during the 2016 campaign (Stormy Daniels and Karen Mcdougal) who allege that they had affairs with Trump, the lawyer stated that he had paid them at Trump’s request.
The Me too, movement had seen many allegations against Donald Trump made by multiple women. These allegations began surfacing before the 2016 elections and continued throughout his presidency with accusations ranging from sexual harassment to assault. Many of the allegations were supported by the release of a 2005 tape in which Trump was recorded making lewd comments about women. Trump had consistently denied all these allegations.
All the documents from the now-concluded federal probe into the payments suggest Trump was aware of efforts to buy the silence of the two women in the days leading up to the elections.
The Indictment: Former President Of the United States
Though the indictment, which has been filed under seal, has still to be revealed, Trump and his firm allies have already ripped into District Attorney and the grand jury’s decision, blasting it and terming it as “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
The Indictment And Why?
Donald Trump is facing nearly 30 counts related to business fraud; the former President is anticipated to be prosecuted in Manhattan criminal court.
While the payment made to Daniels is under investigation, so is the reimbursement made to Cohen (his former attorney), who faced federal criminal charges, made by Trump Organization executives who authorized payments to him totalling $420,000 to cover his original $130,000 payment and tax liabilities and reward him with a bonus.
The company, however, noted the reimbursements as a legal expense in its internal books.
Hush Money And Laws Around It
Now, hush money payments aren’t illegal, but prosecutors are on the bench whether to charge Trump with falsifying the business records of the Trump Organization basis how it reflected the reimbursement of the payment made to Cohen, who said that he advanced the money to the porn actress.
Falsifying business records is a misdemeanour in New York; prosecutors also weighed whether to charge Trump with falsifying business records in the first degree for allegedly falsifying a record with the intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal another crime, which in this case could be a violation of campaign finance laws.
This is regarded as a Class E felony and carries a sentence of a minimum of one year and as many as four years; the prosecutors, in order to prove the case, must show Trump had intentions to commit a crime.
The Political Scandals And The Need For Indictment
The US. political landscape has not been devoid of scandals and possible misdemeanours by its Presidents – Nixon, the Watergate scandal, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern sex scandal but nothing that the US. Justice system felt worthy of criminal proceedings.
However, things are to change with the historic indictment of the 76-year-old Republican possible President hopeful.
Donald Trump’s Response
Although Trump denies all wrongdoing in connection with the payments made before the election that sent him to the White House for one of the most controversial terms in the history of the United States, it is noteworthy that he has survived two impeachments and kept prosecutors at bay over everything from the US—Cpitol riots to missing classified files.
Trump has denied having any Sexual relations with Daniels and stated that he had done nothing wrong.
To give it to Trump, he is portraying the indictment as a political witch hunt against him and has gone a step further to use it to rally his supporters.
Trump, who is regarded as the front-runner to be the Republican nominee in the 2024 elections, has branded all of the investigations against him as political persecution (anyone getting a sense of the Indian political landscape)
However, given Trump’s charm and firm support, he may indeed be succeeding as his supporters are lapping up whatever rhetoric he dishes up.
But why has this matter gained so much ground?
It is because the hush payments were intended to influence the outcome of the elections, and they violated US laws governing campaign contributions, making Trump an unindicted co-conspirator.
The People of the State of New York against Donald J. Trump
The judge overseeing the case against Trump signed off on an order granting the request to publicly disclose the sealed grand jury indictment.
Judge Juan Merchan wrote in the order that the disclosure would be “in the public interest and an appropriate exercise of this Court’s discretion,”.
