Trump

A brief history of the Trump case currently on trial In January of 2018 Trump lawyer arranged a payment to a porn star to silence her claims about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. Trump denied the claim. Prosecutors felt they had enough evidence to bring charges but declined based on the longstanding Justice Department policy of not charging a sitting president. Several months later, after federal prosecutors concluded their investigation Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance issued a subpoena for 8 years of Trump's business and personal tax records. In February 2021 Vance obtained the documents. At this point Trump was no longer president so Vance ramped up the probe. By March 2021 the DA felt that a felony charge would not hold up so the case was dropped. Vance resigned and in January 2022 was replaced with Alvin Bragg. On November 2022 Trump announced his bid for the 2024 election. In April 2023 Bragg presented his case against Trump. He did not mention the hush money claim but issued 34 counts of falsifying business records. According to Bragg Trump denied a sexual relationship and then lied about it on 34 business records, 12 ledger entries, 11invoices and 11 checks to disguise these payments as legal fees. These would be misdemeanors but Bragg elevated them to felonies arguing they were committed to hide another crime which he did not charge saying he was not required to specify the crime. This was necessary because the statute of limitations had expired on the misdemeanor charge.