The People Of New York v. Donald J. Trump – The Facts Of The Case Explained

“The alleged facts presented by the Manhattan D.A.’s office make clear – this is a case about illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election, not just about ‘hush money.’” – D21 President Fred Wertheimer

On Monday, April 15, the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump began in Manhattan. The People of New York v. Donald J. Trump, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, charges the former President with 34 counts of “Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree” in furtherance of another crime, including campaign finance violations. The charges are Class E felonies.

The case, in a nutshell, is this: Former President Trump allegedly falsified business records in an effort to conceal payments he made to hide his alleged affairs and thereby influence the 2016 presidential election in violation of campaign finance laws. These alleged campaign finance violations were the ones, among others, that sent Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen to jail.

As Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer explains, “The alleged facts presented by the Manhattan D.A.’s office make clear – this is a case about illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election, not just about a ‘hush money’ payment to cover up an affair.”

Wertheimer continues: “Trump could easily have lost the 2016 presidential election if his affair with adult entertainer Stormy Daniels had become public in the closing days of the election, coming on the heels of the firestorm created by the release of the Trump Access Hollywood tape. Trump narrowly won the election by a combined 107,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This was 0.09 percent of the total votes cast in the presidential election.”

Bragg brought the charges against Trump in April 2023. At that time, Bragg’s office published a detailed “Statement of Facts” that lays out what Trump allegedly did.

As Bragg said at the time: “The People of the State of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election. […] As the Statement of Facts describes, the trail of money and lies exposes a pattern that, the People allege, violates one of New York’s basic and fundamental business laws. As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law.”

Here are key excerpts from the Manhattan D.A. office’s “Statement Of Facts.” Links to additional resources are included at the end of this report.

Context and commentary from Democracy 21 are in italics.

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EXCERPTS FROM THE STATEMENT OF FACTS

Issued by Alvin Bragg, District Attorney, New York County

April 4, 2023

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“Defendant” is former President Donald Trump.

From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects. In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.

“Lawyer A” is Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen. The “adult film actress” is Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels). The payment to Daniels described in this section was made in October 2016, approximately three weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen, Daniels, and her attorney are expected to be key witnesses at the trial.

One component of this scheme was that, at the Defendant’s request, a lawyer who then worked for the Trump Organization as Special Counsel to Defendant (“Lawyer A”), covertly paid $130,000 to an adult film actress shortly before the election to prevent her from publicizing a sexual encounter with the Defendant. Lawyer A made the $130,000 payment through a shell corporation he set up and funded at a bank in Manhattan. This payment was illegal, and Lawyer A has since pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution and served time in prison. Further, false entries were made in New York business records to effectuate this payment, separate and apart from the New York business records used to conceal the payment.

In this section, Bragg describes how Trump allegedly took part in the scheme, including documenting Trump’s repayment to Cohen for the hush money payment Cohen made to Daniels and how the checks to Cohen were “disguised” as payments for “legal services.”

After the election, the Defendant reimbursed Lawyer A for the illegal payment through a series of monthly checks, first from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (the “Defendant’s Trust”) – a Trust created under the laws of New York which held the Trump Organization entity assets after the Defendant was elected President – and then from the Defendant’s bank account. Each check was processed by the Trump Organization, and each check was disguised as a payment for legal services rendered in a given month of 2017 pursuant to a retainer agreement. The payment records, kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, were false New York business records. In truth, there was no retainer agreement, and Lawyer A was not being paid for legal services rendered in 2017. The Defendant caused his entities’ business records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct.

[…]

In this section, Bragg outlines the broader efforts by Trump and his presidential campaign to “identify and suppress negative stories about him” and discusses the efforts of the tabloid National Enquirer to stop publication of stories that would have been damaging to Trump during the campaign. Payments to stop the publication of stories are commonly known as “catch-and-kill payments.” David Pecker, then-CEO of AMI, the media company that owned and published the National Enquirer, is a well-known ally of Trump’s. NBC News reports that Pecker, along with Dylan Howard, then-AMI Editor-in-Chief, are likely to testify at the trial about this effort.

During and in furtherance of his candidacy for President, the Defendant and others agreed to identify and suppress negative stories about him. Two parties to this agreement have admitted to committing illegal conduct in connection with the scheme. In August 2018, Lawyer A pleaded guilty to two federal crimes involving illegal campaign contributions, and subsequently served time in prison. In addition, in August 2018, American Media, Inc. (“AMI”), a media company that owned and published magazines and supermarket tabloids including the National Enquirer, admitted in a non-prosecution agreement that it made a payment to a source of a story to ensure that the source “did not publicize damaging allegations” about the Defendant “before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election.”

[…]

This section explains how the timing of these efforts came right after the October 2016 release of the damaging Access Hollywood tape where Trump was heard making vulgar statements about his mistreatment of women.

About one month before the election, on or about October 7, 2016, news broke that the Defendant had been caught on tape saying to the host of Access Hollywood: “I just start kissing them [women]. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. . . . Grab ’em by the [genitals]. You can do anything.” The evidence shows that both the Defendant and his campaign staff were concerned that the tape would harm his viability as a candidate and reduce his standing with female voters in particular.

“Woman 2” in this section is adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The AMI CEO is David Pecker, AMI Editor-in-Chief is Dylan Howard, and Lawyer A is Michael Cohen, as mentioned earlier. (“Woman 1” mentioned earlier in the Bragg indictment, but not included in these excerpts, is Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who, like Daniels, allegedly had an affair with Trump that was part of Trump’s coverup efforts.)

Shortly after the Access Hollywood tape became public, the AMI Editor-in-Chief contacted the AMI CEO about another woman (“Woman 2”) who alleged she had a sexual encounter with the Defendant while he was married. The AMI CEO told the AMI Editor-in Chief to notify Lawyer A.

“Lawyer B” in this section is Daniels’ attorney Keith Davidson.

On or about October 10, 2016, the AMI Editor-in-Chief connected Lawyer A with Woman 2’s lawyer (“Lawyer B”). Lawyer A then negotiated a deal with Lawyer B to secure Woman 2’s silence and prevent disclosure of the damaging information in the final weeks before the presidential election. Under the deal that Lawyer B negotiated, Woman 2 would be paid $130,000 for the rights to her account.

[…]

In this section, “TO CFO” is former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. On April 10, 2024, Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of perjury in testimony he gave during Trump’s civil fraud trial.

Ultimately, with pressure mounting and the election approaching, the Defendant agreed to the payoff and directed Lawyer A to proceed. Lawyer A discussed the deal with the Defendant and the TO CFO. The Defendant did not want to make the $130,000 payment himself, and asked Lawyer A and the TO CFO to find a way to make the payment. After discussing various payment options with the TO CFO, Lawyer A agreed he would make the payment. Before making the payment, Lawyer A confirmed with the Defendant that Defendant would pay him back.

Bragg describes here how Cohen set up a shell company and bank account to handle the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.

On or about October 26, shortly after speaking with the Defendant on the phone, Lawyer A opened a bank account in Manhattan in the name of Essential Consultants LLC, a new shell company he had created to effectuate the payment. He then transferred $131,000 from his personal home equity line of credit (“HELOC”) into that account. On or about October 27, Lawyer A wired $130,000 from his Essential Consultants LLC account in New York to Lawyer B to suppress Woman 2’s account.

[…]

Again, Defendant is Trump, Lawyer A is Cohen, TO CFO is Weisselberg, and Woman 2 is Daniels.

Shortly after being elected President, the Defendant arranged to reimburse Lawyer A for the payoff he made on the Defendant’s behalf. In or around January 2017, the TO CFO and Lawyer A met to discuss how Lawyer A would be reimbursed for the money he paid to ensure Woman 2’s silence. The TO CFO asked Lawyer A to bring a copy of a bank statement for the Essential Consultants account showing the $130,000 payment.

[…]

These next sections describe in detail how the hush money reimbursements to Cohen (“Lawyer A”) were allegedly falsely recorded as and reimbursed as payments for “legal services.” TO Controller is former Trump Organization Controller Jeffrey McConney and the TO Accounts Payable Supervisor is Deborah Tarasoff. Both McConney and Tarasoff are expected to be called as witnesses by the prosecution. McConney, ABC News reports, is also expected to testify in Trump’s defense.

On or about February 14, 2017, Lawyer A emailed the Controller of the Trump Organization (the “TO Controller”) the first monthly invoice, which stated: “Pursuant to the retainer agreement, kindly remit payment for services rendered for the months of January and February, 2017.” The invoice requested payment in the amount of $35,000 for each of those two months. The TO CFO approved the payment, and, in turn, the TO Controller sent the invoice to the Trump Organization Accounts Payable Supervisor (the “TO Accounts Payable Supervisor”) with the following instructions: “Post to legal expenses. Put ‘retainer for the months of January and February 2017’ in the description.”

Lawyer A submitted ten similar monthly invoices by email to the Trump Organization for the remaining months in 2017. Each invoice falsely stated that it was being submitted “[p]ursuant to the retainer agreement,” and falsely requested “payment for services rendered” for a month of 2017. In fact, there was no such retainer agreement and Lawyer A was not being paid for services rendered in any month of 2017.

[…]

The first check mentioned in this section were signed by former Trump Organization CFO (TO CFO) Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump Jr.

The TO Accounts Payable Supervisor then prepared checks with attached check stubs for approval and signature. The first check was paid from the Defendant’s Trust and signed by the TO CFO and the Defendant’s son, as trustees. The check stub falsely recorded the payment as “Retainer for 1/1-1/31/17” and “Retainer for 2/1-2/28/17.” The second check, for March 2017, was also paid from the Trust and signed by two trustees. The check stub falsely recorded the payment as “Retainer for 3/1-3/31/17.”

The checks mentioned in this next section were signed by former President Trump himself. One of those checks, introduced as evidence in Michael Cohen’s trial, can be seen here.

The remaining nine checks, corresponding to the months of April through December of 2017, were paid by the Defendant personally. Each of the checks was cut from the Defendant’s bank account and sent, along with the corresponding invoices from Lawyer A, from the Trump Organization 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. There, the checks, the stubs, and the invoices were scanned and maintained in the Trump Organization’s data system before the checks themselves were detached and mailed to Lawyer A for payment.

[…]

This section describes former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in 2018 to felonies as part of this scheme to cover up payments to Stormy Daniels (“Woman 2”). Note that Bragg emphasizes here that Cohen’s actions were taken “in coordination with, and at the direction of” Trump.

Cohen was sentenced to prison in December 2018 after pleading guilty to his role in this 2016 election interference effort, lying to Congress, and other crimes. He served three years, most of it in home confinement, and was released in November 2021. The “candidate” Cohen mentions is Trump.

Lawyer A also pleaded guilty to a felony in connection with his payoff of Woman 2 to secure her silence, again at the Defendant’s direction. Lawyer A admitted as part of his guilty plea:

“[O]n or about October of 2016, in coordination with, and at the direction of, the same candidate, I arranged to make a payment to a second individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign to keep the individual from disclosing the information. To accomplish this, I used a company that was under my control to make a payment in the sum of $130,000. The monies I advanced through my company were later repaid to me by the candidate. I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election.” (emphasis added).

The Statement of Facts includes additional details on the Stormy Daniels payments, as well as the effort to stop the publication of Karen McDougal’s alleged affair with Trump.

Based on these facts, the Grand Jury of the County of New York in April 2023 issued an indictment charging former President Donald Trump with 34 separate felony counts of falsifying business records in violation of New York State law and in furtherance of another crime – one count for each instance of falsifying a business record.

All 34 counts are outlined in the April 2023 indictment.