Donald Trump announces his arrest, which should take place on Tuesday 20 March, and urges his supporters to mobilize: “Let’s demonstrate”. The former US president does not explain why he should be arrested but points the finger at the “corrupt Manhattan prosecutor’s office”. New York prosecutors are investigating the former president’s alleged role in a black payments scheme linked to the Trump Organization.
The story brings the name of Stormy Daniels back into the spotlight, the porn star who received a payment of 130 thousand dollars in October 2016, shortly before the elections that crowned Trump. The figure was used to convince the woman – born Stephanie A. Gregory Clifford – to keep quiet about an alleged flirtation she had in 2006 with The Donald. Trump has always publicly denied any relationship with the porn star.
The payment at the time was made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer and former president’s ‘fixer’: it was up to him to intervene to resolve thorny situations such as the Stormy Daniels case. The money was returned to Cohen – as the investigators hypothesize – through an alteration of the accounts of the Trump Organization: the falsification of such data is a crime in the state of New York.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The lawyer pleaded guilty to tax evasion and violations of presidential campaign finance rules.
Recently, the New York Times wrote that the investigators have offered Trump the possibility of appearing before a grand jury: the passage, according to the newspaper, would indicate the imminence of an indictment.
The accusation hypothesis against Trump could take different forms: the fraudulent conduct could be considered functional to the violation or the intention to violate rules relating to the financing of the electoral campaign. The Trump Organization recorded the reimbursements to Cohen as attorney fees in its internal records. The former president has always denied knowing about the payment. Trump risks becoming the first former president indicted.
