The New York prosecutors began to explain to a jury why the alleged Donald Trump’s cover-up of a hush payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign broke the lawat the beginning of the first criminal trial against a former president of the United States.
What prosecutors said about Donald Trump
“This case is about fraud conspiracy,” He said prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to the jury. “The accused, donald trumporchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.”
Lawyers for the Republican presidential candidate will also make their opening statements in what could be the only one of the four criminal trials of trump who will go to trial before his November 5 electoral rematch with the Democratic president Joe Biden.
Although trump asked his supporters to protest peacefully at courthouses “across the country,” few were present to greet him when he arrived at the courthouse in the city center. trump He suggested that tight security measures were responsible for the low attendance, but the streets surrounding the venue were open to the public.
“Lower Manhattan, surrounding the Courthouse, where I’m headed now, is completely CLOSED. SO UNFAIR!!!”he wrote on social networks.
Prosecutors say the payment of $130,000 from Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to porn actress Stormy Daniels for his silence about an alleged sexual encounter with trump a decade earlier he misled voters in the final days of the 2016 campaign, as he faced other revelations of sexual misconduct.
Prosecutors will be able to ask Trump
At the opening of the trial, the judge Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors may ask trumpif he testifies, about two other cases: one that determined that he fraudulently misrepresented the value of his real estate assets, and another that determined that he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape.
Merchan He also said prosecutors will be able to show jurors a transcript of a tape of the television show. “Access Hollywood” in which trump makes vulgar comments about grabbing women’s genitals, although jurors will not be able to see the tape itself.
Dressed in a blue tie and dark blue suit, trump He stared at the judge and occasionally spoke to his lawyer. A Secret Service agent wearing a headset sat right behind him.
trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records filed by the district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, and denies having had a sexual encounter with daniels.
Source: Ambito
