Donald Trump hush-money trial: David Pecker returns to witness stand – live

1 year ago

Chris Michael

Good morning.

David Pecker returns to the witness stand today in the case of the People of the State of New York versus Donald Trump – the first ever criminal trial of a former US president.

Trump is accused by the prosecution of “orchestrat[ing] a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” in his efforts to cover up an alleged affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels.

They call it “election fraud – pure and simple”.

Trump’s defense says there was no crime committed because paying hush money is not illegal and neither is trying to influence the outcome of an election – “It’s called democracy.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the alleged affair Daniels just weeks before the election.

As a reminder (no shame – this stuff is confusing), it’s the first of four (4) criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee to reach trial. It hinges on a $130,000 payment that Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, made to Daniels to keep her story under wraps. Bragg contends that Trump masked the true nature of the payment in business records, by describing repayments to Cohen as lawful legal expenses. Because Trump paid the money to influence the election, Bragg says it’s a campaign expense, so by lying about it he violated federal campaign law – causing the fraud to rise from a misdemeanour to a felony.

Court is scheduled to resume today after a day off yesterday. We’re at the courthouse, as usual. Stay with us.

Trump’s criminal hush-money trial: what to know