The next US presidential elections are scheduled for November 2024 – former President Donald Trump is also running for the Republican candidacy. A few months earlier, he had another appointment: in court.
Former US President Donald Trump is due to appear in court just eight months before the US presidential election. The start of his trial in connection with hush money payments to a porn star was tentatively set for March 25, 2024, as reported by the broadcasters CNN and CNBC.
According to CNN, the responsible judge Juan Merchan emphasized that he did not want to prevent Trump from campaigning in any way. In the hearing, which lasted only a few minutes, the 76-year-old was informed by the judge that he was not allowed to publish internal court documents. Trump himself was connected via video, wore a suit, sat in front of two US flags and did not comment.
$130,000 hush money from Trump?
Trump has been accused of 34 counts in New York since the beginning of April: the public prosecutor’s office has accused the Republican of forging business documents. He said he wanted to hide harmful information and illegal activities before and after the 2016 presidential election in order to improve his voting chances. Under New York election laws, it is a criminal offense to conspire to advance a candidate in an election by illegal means.
The background to the case is above all that Trump had paid $ 130,000 in hush money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels shortly before his election as president. She had claimed she had sex with him. Trump denies an affair, but not that money flowed. Confidentiality agreements between two parties are not in themselves illegal. However, Trump is accused of having booked the payments illegally, trying to conceal them illegally and thus wanting to cover up other violations of the law.
Trump pleads ‘not guilty’
Trump is the first ex-president in US history to face criminal charges. The candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election had pleaded “not guilty”.
Trump is also currently dealing with courts in several other cases. In early May, a New York jury found it proven that Trump had assaulted and sexually assaulted US author E. Jean Carroll in a New York luxury department store in 1996. The criminal allegations are statute-barred, but Carroll had legal recourse under civil law. The jury also ordered Trump to pay the 79-year-old a total of five million dollars (around 4.56 million euros) for defamation.
Trump appealed the verdict – and again spoke disparagingly about Carroll in a CNN interview after the verdict. She then expanded another lawsuit for defamation about these statements by Trump, as US media reported unanimously. Accordingly, she is now demanding another “very substantial” sum.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
