NEW YORK. The first day of Trump's trial has concluded. Tomorrow the jury will resume and continue the testimony of David Pecker, former editor of National Enquirerthe tabloid that according to prosecutors was used to cover up some embarrassing events involving Donald Trump and not compromise his race for the White House in 2016.
The trial taking place in New York is that of the so-called “hush money”, i.e. the money that was used to reimburse Michael Cohen who had paid 130 thousand dollars in advance to Stormy Daniel, an adult film actress, who in 2006 had had an affair with Trump.
The money was used to buy his silence. In fact, the woman had decided to tell her story to the tabloids, and she was stopped and convinced not to do so after paying a large amount of money.
There are 34 charges against Trump and they revolve around the fact that the accused tampered with the accounting books to pay Cohen by hiding the item under the heading legal expenses. By doing so, however, he would have directly prevented a story potentially impacting the course of the 2016 elections from becoming public and therefore influenced the presidential elections. This is the prosecution's thesis that prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, from District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, summarized in court by saying that “it was pure and simple election fraud.”
The defense lawyer replied to this accusation that “Trump is innocent, he has not committed any crime and this case should never have been started.”
The defense's thesis is that he was not aware of the details of the agreement made by Cohen and Daniels and had limited himself to signing the checks presented to him by his lawyer, Michal Cohen. «There is nothing wrong in any case – he then added. in trying to influence an election: it's called democracy.”
After the statements of the prosecution and defense it was the turn of the first witness. Pecker, who was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony, described how the tabloid paid for stories and access to sources and that he ultimately had the final say on how celebrities were treated.
His deposition will actually go live tomorrow. Pecker met Trump in the courtroom, the man was sitting in front of the former president and at the end of the testimony he left the room greeting Trump, “Hi”, to which Donald did not respond.
Trump left the courthouse shortly before 1pm (New York time) and gave a long statement to reporters. He reiterated again that “a witch hunt orchestrated by Biden to prevent him from returning to the White House” is underway against him and cited the polls that put him in the lead.
He reiterated his innocence.
The prosecutors plan to call at least 20 witnesses to testify, among these there will be Stormy Daniel herself and Hope Hicks, then Trump's head of communications who would have known about the affair between Trump and the porn star and told her not to let it out. In an interrogation she denied having knowledge of it. Under oath, when it is your turn, you will have to actually reveal what you knew.
The process could take up to six weeks. All the time that Trump – he denounced – will prevent me from being in Florida or elsewhere to campaign.
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