“It was voter fraud, pure and simple.” Balanced with this key sentence Matthew Colangelo Monday morning at the southern Manhattan courthouse to make his opening statement in the first criminal trial of a former American president.
In order to suppress extramarital sex affairs, I have Donald Trump staged a “criminal plot” and later tried to cover it up, the New York prosecutor said.
The 77-year-old did this together with his former private lawyer Michael Cohen and the former tabloid owner David Pecker made common cause. Trump, composed and grim, grimaced here for the first time.
Trump’s Motive
The accused case: About the Porno-Star Stormy Daniels To silence her about a sex affair dating back to 2006, Stephanie Clifford, born in 2006, received $130,000 from Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. The sum was recorded as legal fees in Trump’s business filings. From the investigators’ point of view, these were clearly expenses for the presidential election campaign at the time; a punishable fraud.
Colangelo elaborates on the motive in his plea before the twelve jurors. “America’s voters should not find out about the sex affair before election day.” Details about the affair with Daniels, which Trump still denies today, could have had a “devastating” effect on his presidential ambitions shortly after the “Access Hollywood” scandal became known. In the tape recording made public just before the election, Trump said that powerful people like him could grab women’s legs with impunity.
The public prosecutor’s office makes it clear that Trump used his good relationship with the “National Enquirer” boss David Pecker to keep stories that were unfavorable to him under the covers. Pecker assisted here in the Karen McDougal case. Her ten-month relationship with Trump in 2006/2007 was kept out of the public eye with $150,000 (initially from Pecker’s coffers). According to the prosecutor, Trump was “desperately” looking for a way to ensure that his love affair with the former Playboy model would not come to light.
Short appearance of the first witness
Pecker only made a 20-minute brief appearance as the prosecution’s first witness on Monday. The 72-year-old man with the white mustache on the upper lip, a close friend of Trump’s for many years, roughly confessed to “checkbook journalism” but did not go into detail.
The contrast program to the prosecution came from Todd Blanche. The lead lawyer on Trump’s team began his plea unequivocally: “President Trump is innocent.” What he did “each of us would have done”. The prosecution’s narrative was “clean and pretty” but “not true.”
Blanche emphasized that Trump “had nothing to do” with the reimbursement of the hush money paid by Cohen to Stormy Daniels. The fact that Cohen received a total of $420,000 back for the advance payment of $130,000 speaks for his client, whom the prosecution had previously characterized as a penny-pincher. Blanche’s core statement: Trump did nothing criminal at all. “There is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”
Frustration von Cohen
Blanche already revealed an important part of his strategy here: He called key witness Michael Cohen a liar who is still obsessed with Trump to this day, calling him a “despicable individual” and having a deep desire for Trump to end up in prison. Blanche cited frustration as the motive for Cohen’s statements against his former boss: “Cohen wanted a job in the government. He didn’t get one.” Addressing the jury: “He cannot be trusted.”
Because one juror complained of pain and needed to see a doctor, the first real day of the trial was canceled after just three hours. It continues this Tuesday. It will then also be clarified whether Judge Merchan will punish Trump for continued violations of the gag order. Trump ignores all calls to stop insulting judges, prosecutors and witnesses.
Merchan gave the prosecution permission to address various of Trump’s old sins. For example, the fraud in his company that was recently fined over $450 million. And the two-fold libel trial against columnist E. Jean Carroll, whom the court said he sexually abused. As well as the many violations of previous “muzzle orders”.
Trump and “the truth”
Because unfavorable details will emerge in all cases, it is not expected that Trump himself will take the witness stand. His lawyers must fear that their client is “talking himself out of proportion,” said US analysts. Trump, on the other hand, emphasized several times that he definitely wanted to “tell the truth.”
During the trial, several security guards regularly sat directly behind Trump. Nine judicial employees were present in the packed hall. It was clear to see how difficult it was for Trump to be only allowed to be on the air and not on the air. His expression was grim and composed. Every now and then he shook his head quietly. There were no outbursts of anger.
What was noticeable: Nobody from his private environment, neither his wife, his adult children nor other family members, were present to provide the defendant with moral support. Donald Trump was alone.
