Just Security: A Complete Guide To The Manhattan Trump Election Interference Prosecution
A new guide, published on Just Security, explains what to expect at former President Donald Trump’s landmark criminal trial in Manhattan for allegedly falsifying records to cover up payments made to hide information from voters. The trial is set to begin on April 15.
The guide was written by Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.), Andrew Warren, and Siven Watt.
“As an evaluative matter, our assessment of the evidence is that there is a significant likelihood of conviction,” the authors write. “We also assess that if Trump is convicted, a sentence of incarceration is not unlikely. We anticipate that should that come to pass, Trump will be released pending appeal, which will be a lengthy post-trial litigation process. […] We hasten to add that we are simply analyzing the present likelihood of those outcomes based on what is known today about the facts and the law, that trials are inherently unpredictable, and that Trump must of course be considered innocent until proven guilty.”
“To call this simply a ‘hush money’ case, as some have done, fails to capture or portray what this case is really about – it is, at its heart, an election interference case,” Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said. “It is a case about 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump allegedly arranging hush money, later falsely disguised as business records, in order to hide from voters his affair with an adult entertainer in the wake of the Access Hollywood video that had rocked his campaign one month before the election. The hush money was allegedly given to protect Trump’s campaign.”
As Wertheimer notes, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office explained in bringing the indictment, that Trump was out to “bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects. Trump then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”
The Just Security guide includes deeply researched sections on the indictment and evidence; the judge and lawyers involved; pretrial matters; jury selection; the core prosecution and defense cases; and issues regarding sentencing and appeal, if Trump is convicted.
The Guide is online at Just Security.
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