SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 3.7.2024
The Hush Money trial Donald Trump fears the most is soon to kickoff. It combines what Trump is all about. Sex. Money. Politics. The payoff to a porn star to secure the presidency in 2016.
The tabloids worldwide will be in a feeding frenzy as Trump will be dragged through the swamp of his own personal behavior. Which resulted in the payoff to porn actress, his alleged one time mistress, prior to the the 2016 presidential election.
Trump, famous for his blatant sexism, as evidenced in the notorious 2005 “Hollywood Access” tape, which nearly torched his victory. Will now be called to a criminal legal accounting for his behavior in his hometown. New York City.
Excerpted from The New York Times 3.7.2024
The trial draws nearer — it is set to start on March 25 in Manhattan — it’s become apparent that prosecutors would like to tell a wide ranging story full of tabloid details, one that could be personally embarrassing to Donald Trump.
The hush money case, which is being prosecuted by Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan, has always been an awkward mix of the serious and the profane, based around a seamy tale of extramarital sex, business records and presidential politics.
Trump’s aides are blunt that he particularly hates this case given the nature of the story that prosecutors intend to put in front of the jury.
The hush money case arguably is an election interference case, centering on allegations that, on the eve of the 2016 presidential race, Trump falsified business records as part of a scheme to buy the silence of a porn star to keep her from going public with claims that they had an affair.
The basics are these: In the waning days of Trump’s first run for the White House, the porn star Stormy Daniels threatened to reveal an affair she says she had with him — a scandalous development that could have damaged his campaign. So, according to prosecutors and their star witness, the former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump arranged to buy her silence. In so doing, employees working at his direction falsified a series of invoices, checks and ledger entries to cover his tracks.
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