Former U.S President, Donald Trump’s hush money trial began in earnest on Monday, April 22, 2024, with lawyers for both sides making their opening statements.
According to Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” in his efforts to cover up an alleged affair with Daniels.
David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer and a man at the heart of Trump’s alleged crimes, was called to the stand as first witness.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors that Trump, his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, and Pecker hatched a plan to keep damaging information about Trump out of the press.
Colangelo said this “catch-and-kill” campaign was geared towards helping Trump’s 2016 election campaign. He mentioned an earlier payment to Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump.
The prosecutor also read out a transcript of Trump’s infamous comments on the set of the Access Hollywood television show, where Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because he was famous, and noted that the video was released to the public in October 2016, one month before election day.
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape becoming public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that Stormy Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors.
“This was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures – to silence people with something bad to say about his behavior.
“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
Matthew Colangelo
In the defense’s opening statements, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche stressed that Trump “is innocent.”
“President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should not have brought this case,” Blanche said.
Blanche argued that Trump was unaware about the specifics of the hush-money payments because he left it all to Cohen. “Trump had nothing to do with the 34 checks other than to sign them,” Blanche said.
He added, “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”
Prosecutors, he said, “they put something sinister on this idea, as if it was a crime. You’ll learn: it’s not.”
He defended Trump’s attempt to address Stormy Daniels’s “sinister” allegations, calling it an attempt to try to “embarrass President Trump, to embarrass his family, because as the people alluded to at that time, there were all kinds of salacious allegations going around about President Trump, and it was damaging to him and it was damaging to his family.”
“You will hear during this trial President Trump fought back – like he always does – like he’s entitled to do to protect his family, his reputation, and his brand – that is not a crime.”
Todd Blanche
Trump Calls Trial Unfair
Donald Trump spoke to the media after court was adjourned for the day, where he complained that the hush-money case is “a case of bookkeeping, which is a very minor thing.”
He said, “I’m the leading candidate … and this is what they’re trying to take me off the trail for. Checks being paid to a lawyer.”
Trump attacked Michael Cohen, claiming that the things Cohen got in trouble for “had nothing to do with me.”
He stated, “[Cohen] represented a lot of people over the years but they take this payment and they call it a legal expense … and this is what I got indicted over.”
The former U.S President said that he should be campaigning in Georgia, Florida and other places and instead “I’m sitting here and this will go on for a long time.”
He added, “It’s very unfair what’s going on and I should be allowed to campaign.”
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