New York prosecutors began building their case Monday against former President Donald Trump in the first criminal trial against an ex-president, telling jurors he committed tax and election crimes to hush up bad press ahead of the 2016 election.
Prosecutors began building their case Monday against former President Donald Trump in the first criminal trial against a former president, telling jurors he committed tax and election crimes to hush up bad press ahead of the 2016 election.
Mr. Trump and tabloid allies used “catch-and-kill” tactics to stiff-arm bad press before the 2016 election and then lied about it on business records “over and over and over again,” they told the jurors.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team put former National Enquirer executive David Pecker on the witness stand and plan to grill him again Tuesday about an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower that laid the groundwork for an alleged scheme to suppress bad press around Mr. Trump before the 2016 election.
The release of “Access Hollywood” audio, in which Mr. Trump spoke crudely about women, threw fuel on the scheme and led to payoffs to a porn star, false business entries and ultimately 34 felony counts against Mr. Trump, according to an opening argument from prosecutor Matthew Colangelo.
“This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up,” he said in a drab courtroom in lower Manhattan, south of Little Italy and Chinatown.
Mr. Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021 and faces a rematch with President Biden, entered court Monday with a throng of Secret Service agents to face a jury of seven men and five women, plus six alternates.
“It is a very, very sad day in America. I can tell you that,” Mr. Trump said.
Dressed in a navy suit and blue necktie, Mr. Trump sat quietly between his attorneys at the defense table in a courtroom with wood panels along the lower half of the walls and florescent lighting overhead.
Mr. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the indictment secured by Mr. Bragg.
Prosecutors allege Mr. Trump funneled payments to his lawyer, Michael Cohen, through checks cut in 2017 to conceal hush money that had been paid around the 2016 election before misleading banks and others about the purpose of the payments by disguising them as legal services.
Mr. Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, told jurors that prosecutors are concocting a crime out of “34 pieces of paper” that Mr. Trump signed to pay his lawyer many years ago.
He said Mr. Trump had nothing to do with the invoices, the checks and ledger entries that were filled out while Mr. Trump was trying to run the country as president in 2017.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should never have brought this case,” Mr. Blanche said in his opening statement. “You will find that he is not guilty.”
Mr. Trump turned his body toward his lawyer and the jury during opening arguments in the case that will determine whether he runs for president as a convicted felon.
