Cohen, Michael D (1966- )

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      Former National Enquirer Publisher Testifies Before Grand Jury in Trump Case

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      The grand jury investigating a hush-money case against the former president met again on Monday, but the timing of any potential indictment remained unclear.The Manhattan grand jury weighing evidence about Donald J. Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to a porn star heard testimony on Monday from a crucial witness, but there was no sign an indictment had been filed, according to people with knowledge of the matter.The witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, also testified in January. Since the grand jury was impaneled early this year by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, it has heard from at least nine witnesses — including Mr. Pecker, who has now appeared twice — and is expected to vote on an indictment soon.It is unclear whether the grand jury took any action on Monday, but one of the people with knowledge of the matter said it had not voted on an indictment. Grand juries operate in secret, leaving the timing of indictments something of a mystery.Mr. Pecker was a key player in the hush-money episode. He and the tabloid’s top editor helped broker the deal between the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time.Ever since Mr. Trump predicted his arrest a little more than a week ago, all eyes have turned to the grand jury.And while the grand jurors could vote to indict the former president as soon as this week — in what would be the culmination of a nearly five-year investigation — the exact timing is subject to the quirks of the grand jury process in Manhattan, which include scheduling conflicts and other potential interruptions.This particular grand jury meets on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, though it typically has not heard evidence related to the Trump investigation on Thursdays. The panel does not have to meet on each of those days, but only convenes when Mr. Bragg’s office summons the jurors.The timing of an indictment might also depend on the jurors’ availability. Sixteen of the 23 grand jurors must be present to conduct any business (and a majority must vote to indict for the case to go forward). For the prosecutors to seek a vote to indict, the jurors in attendance that day must previously have heard all key witness testimony.Members of the media gathered outside the court building in Lower Manhattan on Monday afternoon.Anna Watts for The New York TimesThe prospect of an indictment has raised a number of questions about the contours of the potential case facing Mr. Trump, who would become the first former American president to be indicted.Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors are focused on the $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels, who agreed to keep quiet about her story of an affair with Mr. Trump in exchange for the payoff. Mr. Cohen made the payment during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.In recent weeks, Mr. Bragg’s office signaled to Mr. Trump’s lawyers that the former president could face criminal charges by offering him the chance to testify before the grand jury, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is near; it would be unusual for prosecutors to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him.In New York, potential defendants have the right to answer questions in front of the grand jury before they are indicted, but they rarely testify, and Mr. Trump declined the offer.Prosecutors have now questioned almost every major player in the hush-money episode, again suggesting that the district attorney’s presentation is nearing an end.Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing — as well as any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels — and unleased a series of escalating attacks on Mr. Bragg. Mr. Trump has referred to the investigation as a “witch hunt” and called Mr. Bragg, who is Black and a Democrat, a “racist” and an “animal.”In a post this month on his social network Truth Social, Mr. Trump declared, without any direct knowledge, that his arrest was imminent, calling on his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” — rhetoric reminiscent of his posts in the lead-up to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The focus of Mr. Pecker’s testimony was unclear, but it is not unusual for a witness to be called before a grand jury a second time, and he could have provided valuable information for prosecutors. A longtime ally of Mr. Trump, he agreed to keep an eye out for potentially damaging stories about Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign.For a brief time in October 2016, Ms. Daniels appeared to have just that kind of story. Her agent and lawyer discussed the possibility of selling exclusive rights to her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump to The National Enquirer, which would then promise to never publish it, a practice known as “catch and kill.”Mr. Pecker didn’t bite. Instead, he and the tabloid’s editor, Dylan Howard, decided that Mr. Cohen would have to deal with Ms. Daniels’s team directly.And when Mr. Cohen was slow to pay, Mr. Howard pressed him to get the deal done, to prevent Ms. Daniels from revealing their discussions about suppressing her story. “We have to coordinate something,” Mr. Howard texted Mr. Cohen in late October 2016, “or it could look awfully bad for everyone.”Two days later, Mr. Cohen transferred the $130,000 to an account held by Ms. Daniels’s attorney.Sean Piccoli More

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      Sex, Lies and … Trump. What More Can You Ask For?

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      One thing we can be sure of: If this Stormy Daniels thing hurts Donald Trump politically, it will be for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with sex.Nobody cares whether or not the two of them once had an, um, intimate assignation. Although I do enjoy recalling that Daniels has referred to it as “the worst 90 seconds of my life.”Right now, the most pressing question is whether Trump committed a crime during the 2016 presidential campaign when his people paid Daniels to keep quiet about their mini-affair, an affair Trump denies ever took place. His lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and served more than a year in prison, but that apparently hasn’t caused Trump to question his own conduct.“The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,” Trump tweeted a few years back. “Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.”We will stop here to note that our former president was a little off when it came to the word “role.” Only mentioning because it gives me an opportunity to recall that he once sent me a missive calling me a liar with “the face of a pig” in which he misspelled “too.”But about the sex. Our political history shows that while people are extremely interested in hearing about politicians’ bad behavior, they don’t base their votes on it.We’ve got a Republican presidential primary coming our way, and if Ron DeSantis is a big player, I think we can presume the Florida governor will win any morality standoff. This guy is apparently a very devoted husband. Whose wife, frankly, seems to be the brains behind his political career.DeSantis has been more or less following his party’s game plan, which is to change the subject when Trump’s legal problems come up and attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for presumably bringing the charges.“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” he said recently. “I just, I can’t speak to that.”Aha! The mention-by-attacking-the-mention approach! And the adding of “alleged” to all discussions of the affair. Much better than the DeSantis tactic of citing “people like our founding fathers” when it comes to exemplary private behavior. Once you get past George Washington it doesn’t take long before you are face to face with Thomas Jefferson’s four-decade entanglement with the enslaved Sally Hemings.The grand tradition of political sex scandals goes back a long way. The ancient Romans, after all, speculated about whether the emperor Nero and his mother had an incestuous … thing going. In early America, even deeply nonrambunctious John Adams was a target — people gossiped that he’d dispatched Gen. Charles Pinckney across the Atlantic to fetch four beautiful Englishwomen for them to share. (“I declare on my honor, if this be true, General Pinckney has kept them all four to himself and cheated me of my two,” Adams declared.)The people who are really affected by this sort of public gossip are the politicians who are the target, some of whom suffer greatly. Can’t believe Bill Clinton isn’t haunted by the fact that if one quote of his goes down in history, it’ll probably be, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”Or take my favorite subject, Grover Cleveland, who was the target of huge headlines claiming, inaccurately, that he’d fathered an illegitimate child. None of that bothered the citizenry — he won the popular vote for president in three straight elections. But the publicity tortured him, and for years his opponents enjoyed singing, “Ma, Ma, where’s Pa?”Not sure Grover ever totally got over it, even when his supporters got to retort, “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.”Now, publicity is never going to be an instrument of torture for Donald Trump. In fact, he’s reportedly all jazzed up about the possibility of doing one of the famous “perp walks” in which a suspect is paraded by Manhattan law officers past reporters after he’s arrested.And as we’ve seen, the American voters who liked Trump to begin with aren’t going to be turned off by a sex scandal. DeSantis’s support among Republicans actually seems to be dropping, maybe even sinking.There are way better lines of attack. Which do you think is worse for a president of the United States?A. Tried to bully a Georgia official into changing the election results.B. Ignored Justice Department demands that he return a pile of classified government documents he took with him when he left office.C. Incited his followers to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.D. No, no, I’m getting a headache.We haven’t even gotten to his advice to people who don’t love their children. That was part of a recent Trump video, in which he bragged that thanks to his reforms, farmers’ children wouldn’t have to pay inheritance tax on agricultural property.And Trump said he had also benevolently taken into consideration landowners who “don’t love your children so much.”Yes! “And there are some people that don’t,” he continued. “And maybe deservedly so, it won’t matter because frankly, you don’t have to leave them anything.”OK, Don Jr., this sort of thing might actually make you a sympathetic figure.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Michael Cohen’s Long Arc From Trump Ally to Chief Antagonist

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      He once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Now, he’s hoping to help prosecutors put him away.When Michael D. Cohen stood before a federal judge to ask for leniency, he attributed much of his behavior to the influence of one man: Donald J. Trump.“Time and time again,” Mr. Cohen told the judge at his sentencing in late 2018, “I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”Ever since, Mr. Cohen has made it his work to expose those deeds. He testified for roughly seven hours at a congressional hearing in 2019, describing Mr. Trump as a liar and a cheater who made racist remarks. Mr. Cohen also met with the special counsel Robert S. Mueller II’s investigators and federal prosecutors in New York. And he was the impetus for the New York attorney general’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices, laying the groundwork for a lawsuit that accused the former president of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars.Mr. Cohen’s transformation from trusted fixer to chief antagonist — a 180-degree turn against a man he once vowed to take a bullet for — upended his life. He went to prison for 13 months and then faced home confinement for more than a year. He endured years of attacks from Mr. Trump’s allies, ultimately emerging with a book deal, cable news appearances and a podcast, “Mea Culpa.”Now, Mr. Cohen is poised to seize his biggest moment yet: a day in court against Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump could be indicted in Manhattan as soon as this week.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Cohen is the key witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into a hush-money payment to a porn star named Stormy Daniels. The payment, which Mr. Cohen said he made at Mr. Trump’s direction during the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, blocked Ms. Daniels from telling her story of an affair with Mr. Trump years earlier.Mr. Cohen has met with the prosecutors some 20 times and recently testified before a grand jury that could indict Mr. Trump as soon as this week, people with knowledge of the matter said. And he has provided documentation that bolsters his testimony, the people added.Mr. Trump has denied having any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels and accused the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, of carrying out a political “witch hunt” against him.Mr. Trump’s team and Mr. Cohen’s critics maintain he is playing a cynical game based on rescuing his reputation and capitalizing on his guilty plea. But his supporters — in Congress, in the Democratic Party and on his expansive social media presence — credit him with a high-risk decision to challenge a president, and force the first significant cracks in Mr. Trump’s edifice.This account of the long, strange and now historically consequential arc of Mr. Trump’s once-loyal lawyer and fixer is drawn from interviews with nearly a dozen people who know him, and records from his various legal entanglements. Collectively, they paint a portrait of a complicated witness — a convicted liar and an opportunist, but also a compelling presence, who notes that his lies were on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and whose emotional vulnerability and blunt recitation of history prosecutors may rely on to charm a jury.“I know there’s a debate about the utilization of Michael as a witness, and that is going to be a colorful cross-examination,” said Norman Eisen, who served as the counsel for House Democrats during the first impeachment inquiry and developed a relationship with Mr. Cohen over the course of multiple meetings.“In dealing with me, he has never varied from our first meeting in 2019 to today in the details of what happened both in the hush money and in the larger financial frauds.”‘He has his purpose’Mr. Cohen had long idolized Mr. Trump, and then went to work for him.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersMr. Cohen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, was a 2003 New York City Council candidate and a mega-fan of Mr. Trump’s public persona before going to work for him. He got the job after impressing Mr. Trump, defending him at a condo board meeting at a Trump building in 2006.And he endeared himself to Mr. Trump by trying to be an indispensable aide and pit bull adviser to a real-estate developer and reality-television star.Part of his role became anticipating Mr. Trump’s whims and desires, and interpreting directions spoken in what Mr. Cohen would later describe as “code.”Mr. Trump had a penchant for compartmentalizing his life. When one of Mr. Trump’s friends asked Mr. Trump why he kept Mr. Cohen around, Mr. Trump replied, “He has his purpose.”That purpose, Mr. Cohen later said, included cleaning up some of Mr. Trump’s messes.In October 2016, while visiting his daughter in London, Mr. Cohen received calls from top executives at The National Enquirer, which had forged close ties to Mr. Trump over the years. They warned that Ms. Daniels was looking to sell her story.Within days, Mr. Cohen hammered out the hush-money deal with Ms. Daniels’s lawyer, securing Ms. Daniels’s silence at a crucial moment for the campaign.When Mr. Trump won the presidency soon after, Mr. Cohen did not accompany him to Washington, and left behind full-time employment at the Trump Organization to set up an office at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs in Midtown Manhattan.The Trump presidency was shaping up to be lucrative for Mr. Cohen: He soon had a roster of corporate clients, including a private equity firm, a large pharmaceutical company and even AT&T, as he held himself out as the personal lawyer to the president.But one issue trailed him: a complaint had been filed with the Federal Election Commission by the good-government group Common Cause about his payment to Ms. Daniels, which was publicly revealed in January 2018 by The Wall Street Journal.Soon, Mr. Cohen acknowledged to the F.E.C. and The New York Times that he had made the payment, insisting he did it on his own and that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign had been a party to it. But he would not say whether Mr. Trump had been aware of the payment.At that time in Washington, Mr. Mueller’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s campaign had conspired with Russians in 2016, and whether Mr. Trump had obstructed justice, was proceeding apace. So were congressional investigations into Mr. Trump’s connections to Russia.Mr. Cohen testified to Congress that discussions about a Trump Tower project in Moscow stopped in January 2016. That turned out to be a lie, for which he would later fault Mr. Trump; the discussions went on until June 2016, into the presidential campaign.Mr. Mueller’s team was also scrutinizing Mr. Cohen, including for the hush-money deal, but soon handed off that inquiry to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.The inquiry came to a head in April 2018, when F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Cohen’s office, home and a hotel where his family stayed while repair work went on at their apartment, taking emails, business records and other material. The event went off like a political bomb: The personal lawyer for a sitting president was the subject of an F.B.I. search based on probable cause that a crime was committed.It also imploded Mr. Cohen’s life. He confided in friends at the time that he was suicidal.As the search garnered wall-to-wall news coverage, Mr. Cohen received a call from Mr. Trump at the White House, with a message: stay strong.But as Mr. Cohen’s legal bills piled up, officials at the family-run Trump Organization began to balk at paying his lawyer, planting the seeds for Mr. Cohen’s break from a man he once idolized.A Seat at the Witness TableMr. Cohen was the sole witness at a 2019 hearing in Congress, where he likened Mr. Trump to “a mobster.”Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWithin months, the fracture between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen was clear.Mr. Cohen soon hired Lanny Davis, a Democrat and a veteran Washington lawyer who worked in Bill Clinton’s White House.Mr. Davis had seen Mr. Cohen on television and reached out to Stephen Ryan, Mr. Cohen’s lawyer at the time. Soon, Mr. Davis and Mr. Cohen were virtually inseparable.In August of 2018, the federal prosecutors in the Southern District readied charges against Mr. Cohen for the hush money and a range of unrelated financial crimes. Mr. Davis said the prosecutors threatened to charge Mr. Cohen’s wife, Laura, with the tax crimes as well.Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty in that case, and later, in another case brought by Mr. Mueller related to his congressional testimony about the potential Trump hotel deal in Moscow.At his first plea hearing, on the hush-money payment, Mr. Cohen pointed the finger at Mr. Trump, who he said directed him to pay it, an accusation that prosecutors later substantiated.Mr. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison.Mr. Davis told Mr. Cohen that he had a path to winning back his credibility, but it wasn’t going to be enough to simply say he was sorry for what he had done. He would have to fully come clean about Mr. Trump, Mr. Davis said. Mr. Cohen told Mr. Davis he was ready.After his split with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen forged a relationship with Lanny Davis, left, a longtime Democrat who became his lawyer.Alex Brandon/Associated PressThey directed their effort at congressional Democrats, who were heading into their third year of investigations into Mr. Trump.In February 2019, Democrats announced that Mr. Cohen would appear at an unusual public hearing, the sole witness discussing the 45th president.Even before he arrived, Mr. Trump’s allies tried to intimidate him. Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, posted on Twitter an accusation that Mr. Cohen had been unfaithful to his wife — and she might not be loyal while he was in prison. Two of Mr. Trump’s closest allies, Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, wrote a joint op-ed attacking Mr. Cohen as a “liar.”But when Mr. Cohen assumed a seat at a witness table for what would become a daylong event, he appeared prepared for the onslaught. He fought back, potentially foreshadowing how he might respond to attacks from Mr. Trump’s lawyers on the witness stand in the Manhattan case.“By coming today, I have caused my family to be the target of personal, scurrilous attacks by the president and his lawyer trying to intimidate me from appearing before this panel,” Mr. Cohen said in opening remarks at the congressional hearing. “Mr. Trump called me a rat for choosing to tell the truth, much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government.”As Mr. Jordan tried to rattle him, Mr. Cohen replied sternly, “Shame on you.”And Mr. Cohen delivered a striking prediction about what might happen the following year: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power,” he said.Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat from Baltimore and the committee chair, who knew Mr. Davis and had invited Mr. Cohen, told him “I know that you are worried about your family, but this is a part of your destiny.”In May 2019, Mr. Cohen began serving his time at a minimum security facility at Otisville, N.Y. It was there that he began to meet with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.Mr. Cohen was released in May 2020 on a medical furlough. But he was soon thrown back in prison by the Trump administration’s Bureau of Prisons, after he refused to sign a document stating he would not write a book, something he was doing.About two weeks later, a judge ordered him released, saying the move was “retaliatory.” He has told friends that he spent 51 days overall in solitary confinement.Twenty VisitsAgain and again in recent years, Mr. Cohen has visited the Manhattan district attorney’s office for meetings with prosecutors.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersBy early 2022, Mr. Cohen was home from prison and his visits with prosecutors moved to their offices in Lower Manhattan. Beginning in January of this year, he seemed to visit almost weekly, staging impromptu news conferences outside to tell reporters that his former boss was in trouble.Mr. Cohen is hardly a perfect witness. Mr. Trump’s lawyers will undoubtedly attack his character and invoke his criminal record. Some appear eager to cross-examine him.This week, at the request of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, one of Mr. Cohen’s former legal advisers testified before the grand jury in hopes of undercutting Mr. Cohen’s credibility. The witness, Robert J. Costello, briefly advised Mr. Cohen when he was facing the federal investigation in 2018, but they had a falling out as Mr. Cohen began taking public swipes at Mr. Trump.Mr. Costello, who was close with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said he told the grand jury that Mr. Cohen was a liar. Mr. Cohen, in turn, said on MSNBC that Mr. Costello “lacks for any sense of veracity.”His cable news appearances, in which he makes off-the-cuff remarks about Mr. Trump and the investigation, have become quite frequent. Even the prosecutors who are relying on Mr. Cohen — and have decided to stake a large part of their case on his testimony — occasionally shake their heads at his media presence, according to a person close to the case.But Mr. Cohen, who has said he feels the need to defend himself publicly, has largely won the at least qualified approval of the district attorney’s office. In his book, Mark F. Pomerantz, the prosecutor who helped lead the investigation until early 2022, wrote that Mr. Cohen had impressed him as “smart but manipulative.”“He struck me as a somewhat feral creature,” Mr. Pomerantz continued. “Most importantly, I thought he was telling the truth.”Mr. Pomerantz argued that Mr. Cohen would play well with jurors, and that his anger at Mr. Trump could be explained: “He was angry with Trump because Trump had seduced Cohen into his criminal orbit, and Cohen had been the only one of Trump’s enablers to have gone to prison. Cohen was angry with himself for allowing himself to be seduced by Trump.”Mr. Cohen’s comprehensive knowledge of the hush-money case is likely another draw for prosecutors. The former fixer could connect all the dots that led to the payment. He liaised with each witness, and with Mr. Trump himself.On the first day of his grand jury testimony this month, when Mr. Cohen stopped outside the courthouse to entertain questions from reporters, he harkened back to what he had told the judge five years earlier.“This is all about accountability,” he said. “He needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds.” More

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      Cronología del soborno a una actriz porno que podría culminar en una acusación formal contra Trump

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      Los fiscales de Manhattan que investigan un pago realizado a Stormy Daniels podrían estar a punto de convertir a Donald J. Trump en el primer expresidente estadounidense en ser acusado penalmente.En aquel momento, todo era más sórdido que trascendental. Una estrella de la telerrealidad invitó a una actriz porno que tenía la mitad de su edad a una habitación de hotel después de una ronda en un torneo de golf de celebridades. Ella llegó con un vestido de lentejuelas doradas y tacones con tiras. Él le prometió salir en televisión y luego, ella aseguró, se acostaron.Sin embargo, la cadena de acontecimientos derivados del encuentro de 2006 que la estrella del cine para adultos Stormy Daniels ha dicho que tuvo con la personalidad de la televisión Donald Trump está a punto de convertirse en un acontecimiento histórico: la primera acusación penal formal contra un expresidente de Estados Unidos.El fiscal de distrito de Manhattan Alvin Bragg señaló que está preparándose para presentar cargos por delitos graves contra Trump; se espera que Bragg lo acuse de ocultar los 130.000 dólares que Michael D. Cohen, el abogado y solucionador de problemas de Trump, le pagó a Daniels a cambio de su silencio antes de las elecciones presidenciales de 2016.Es probable que la condena dependa de que los fiscales demuestren que Trump reembolsó a Cohen y falsificó registros comerciales cuando lo hizo, posiblemente para ocultar una violación de la ley electoral.No sería un caso sencillo. Se espera que los fiscales utilicen una teoría jurídica que no ha sido evaluada en los tribunales de Nueva York, lo que plantea la posibilidad de que un juez pueda desestimar o limitar los cargos. El episodio ha sido analizado tanto por la Comisión Federal Electoral como por fiscales federales de Nueva York; ninguno tomó medidas contra Trump.Trump ha negado haber tenido relaciones sexuales con Daniels y asegura no haber hecho nada malo. El expresidente, que aspira a la candidatura republicana a la Casa Blanca en 2024, ha dejado claro que tachará la acusación de “cacería de brujas” política y la utilizará para movilizar a sus partidarios. El sábado, predijo que sería detenido el martes y convocó protestas.El principal testigo de los fiscales sería Cohen, quien se declaró culpable de violaciones al financiamiento de campañas federales en agosto de 2018 y admitió que ayudó a concertar el pago a Daniels —además de otro pago a una exmodelo de Playboy— para ayudar a la candidatura presidencial de Trump por órdenes de Trump.Cualquier acusación contra Trump presentada por el fiscal de distrito de Manhattan, Alvin L. Bragg, se sustentaría en una teoría legal que no ha sido probada en los tribunales de Nueva York, lo que hace que su éxito no esté para nada garantizado.Benjamin Norman para The New York TimesUna acusación formal marcaría otro episodio extraordinario en la era de Trump: un expresidente —cuyo mandato concluyó con una revuelta en el Capitolio, que trató de revocar unas elecciones justas y quien está bajo investigación por no devolver documentos clasificados— podría enfrentar su primera acusación penal por pagar por el silencio de una estrella porno.Un encuentro en el lago TahoeDaniels, cuyo nombre de pila es Stephanie Gregory y vivió la mayor parte de su infancia en un rancho destartalado en Baton Rouge, Luisiana, tenía 27 años en julio de 2006, cuando conoció a Trump, que entonces tenía 60, en el torneo de golf para famosos celebrado en Nevada.En su autobiografía de 2018, Full Disclosure, Daniels recuerda haberse sentido avergonzada y motivada a tomar el rumbo que tomó tras escuchar, siendo niña, al padre de un amigo referirse a ella como “escoria blanca”. Atraída por el dinero que podía ganar, Daniels comenzó a trabajar como bailarina exótica en un antro local llamado Cinnamon’s, incluso antes de terminar el bachillerato. A los 23 años, comenzó a actuar en películas pornográficas y poco después se casó con el primero de sus cuatro esposos: Bartholomew Clifford, quien dirigió películas para adultos bajo el nombre “Pat Myne”.Cuando conoció a Daniels, Trump ya se había transformado de magnate inmobiliario a estrella de telerrealidad; había viajado al torneo sin su tercera esposa, Melania, que se quedó en casa con su hijo recién nacido. Trump y Daniels se cruzaron en el campo de golf y más tarde en la sala de regalos, donde fueron fotografiados juntos en un estand de su productora de contenido pornográfico, Wicked Pictures. Trump la invitó a cenar.Mientras charlaban esa noche en el penthouse de Trump en Harrah’s Lake Tahoe —Daniels ha dicho que Trump llevaba un pijama de seda negro y pantuflas— él le dijo que debería participar en El aprendiz, un programa de telerrealidad de la NBC. Daniels dudo que él pudiera lograr que ella participara en el programa. Él le aseguró que sí, contó Daniels.De allí en adelante, Trump comenzó a llamarla de vez en cuando desde un número bloqueado, y le decía “honeybunch” (cariñito, en español). Se vieron al menos dos veces más en 2007, en una fiesta de presentación del efímero vodka Trump y en el hotel Beverly Hills, donde vieron la programación de la Semana del tiburón. Pero no volvieron a tener relaciones. Trump nunca la llevó a El aprendiz. Aun así, siguió llamándola, según ella. Al final, ella dejó de contestar.Vendiendo historiasStormy Daniels, una estrella de cine para adultos, recibió 130.000 dólares del mediador de Trump a cambio de su silencio.Shannon Stapleton/ReutersDesde el año 2000, Trump protagonizó campañas presidenciales improbables que parecían más trucos publicitarios que candidaturas serias. En 2011 inició otra, en la que promovió teorías conspirativas según las cuales el entonces presidente Barack Obama había nacido fuera del territorio estadounidense. Mientras lo hacía, Daniels, aún molesta, empezó a trabajar con una agente para ver si podía vender la historia de sus encuentros.Negociaron un trato por 15.000 dólares con Life & Style, una revista de farándula. Daniels le dijo al reportero que la entrevistó que creía que la oferta de Trump de convertirla en concursante había sido una mentira, según una transcripción que apareció después en internet.“¿Crees que solo fue para impresionarte, para intentar acostarse contigo?”, preguntó el reportero. “Sí”, respondió Daniels. “Y supongo que funcionó”, agregó.Cuando la revista contactó a la Organización Trump en busca de comentarios, Cohen devolvió la llamada. El abogado se había incorporado a la empresa cuatro años antes y se había convertido en el solucionador de Trump, haciendo todo lo necesario para resolver los problemas difíciles de su jefe y la familia Trump. Cohen amenazó con demandar, la revista eliminó el reportaje y Daniels no recibió ni un centavo.Por su parte, Trump abandonó la contienda presidencial y siguió siendo el presentador de El aprendiz.En octubre de ese año, la historia de Daniels sobre Trump salió a la luz de manera fugaz después de que su agente la filtrara a un blog de chismes llamado The Dirty, con la finalidad de despertar el interés de alguna publicación que quisiera pagar por la historia. Un par de medios de comunicación le dieron seguimiento, pero ninguno ofreció una remuneración. Daniels negó la historia, y su agente hizo que un abogado de Beverly Hills, California, Keith Davidson, retirara la publicación.Cuando Obama se preparaba para dejar el cargo en 2015, Trump decidió presentarse de nuevo a las elecciones presidenciales. Ese agosto, se sentó en su oficina de la Torre Trump con Cohen y David Pecker, el editor de American Media Inc. y su periódico sensacionalista más importante, The National Enquirer.Pecker, amigo de toda la vida de Trump, había recurrido a The Enquirer para impulsar las anteriores campañas presidenciales de Trump. Según tres personas familiarizadas con la reunión, Pecker prometió publicar historias positivas sobre Trump y negativas sobre sus rivales. También acordó trabajar con Cohen para encontrar y suprimir historias que pudieran perjudicar los nuevos esfuerzos de Trump, una práctica conocida como “atrapar y matar”.El National Enquirer, un tabloide dirigido por David Pecker, desempeñó un papel central en los esfuerzos por “atrapar y matar” historias negativas sobre Trump.Marion Curtis vía Associated PressEn la primavera de 2016, Daniels, con ayuda de su agente, intentó vender su historia de nuevo, esta vez por más de 200.000 dólares. Pero las publicaciones a las que contactó la rechazaron, incluido The Enquirer.Más o menos por esas fechas, Karen McDougal, exmodelo de Playboy, comenzó a explorar cómo monetizar su propia historia de su encuentro con Trump. McDougal, quien fue la conejita del año de Playboy en 1998, ha declarado haber tenido un amorío con Trump desde 2006, cuando ella tenía 35 años. Habían pasado tiempo juntos en su apartamento de la Torre Trump y en el mismo torneo de golf donde se dio el encuentro con Daniels. Pero según McDougal, ella puso fin a la relación en 2007. Trump ha negado el romance.En 2016, con su carrera como modelo en declive, McDougal contrató a Davidson, el mismo abogado que había ayudado a Daniels a eliminar la publicación del blog de 2011.Karen McDougal, exmodelo de Playboy, aseguró que también tuvo un amorío con Trump y que National Enquirer le pagó por su historia, la cual nunca fue publicada.Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BacardiEl abogado se puso en contacto con el editor de The Enquirer, Dylan Howard, para venderle la historia de McDougal, y, según declaraciones de tres personas con conocimiento de las conversaciones, tanto Howard como Pecker informaron a Cohen. A finales de junio, Trump pidió personalmente ayuda a Pecker para mantener a McDougal en silencio, según un testimonio de Pecker ante los fiscales federales.Sni embargo, el tabloide no hizo nada sino hasta que McDougal estaba a punto de conceder una entrevista a ABC News. A principios de agosto, American Media acordó pagarle a McDougal 150.000 dólares por los derechos exclusivos de su historia sobre Trump, camuflando el verdadero propósito del acuerdo al garantizarle que aparecería en dos portadas de revistas, entre otras cosas, según han declarado cinco personas familiarizadas con los hechos.American Media admitiría después, en un acuerdo para evitar un proceso federal, que el principal propósito del acuerdo fue suprimir la historia de McDougal, la cual la empresa no tenía intención alguna de publicar.Mientras tanto, Daniels seguía sin encontrar a alguien que quisiera comprar su historia. Su suerte cambiaría a principios de octubre.‘Podría hacernos ver muy mal’El solucionador de problemas de Trump, Michael D. Cohen, a la derecha, fue a prisión en parte por violaciones de financiamiento de campañas relacionadas con pagos de sobornos. Le ha dado la espalda al expresidente y podría testificar en su contra.Jefferson Siegel para The New York TimesLa noticia cayó como una bomba en la contienda presidencial. El 7 de octubre de 2016, el diario The Washington Post publicó lo que se conocería como la cinta Access Hollywood, en la que Trump, sin darse cuenta de que el micrófono estaba encendido, fue grabado mientras describía en términos lascivos cómo manoseaba a las mujeres.La gente que rodeaba a Daniels se dio cuenta enseguida de que la nueva vulnerabilidad de Trump la convertía en una amenaza mayor, y por lo tanto su historia había ganado valor. Davidson, el abogado de Los Ángeles, también era amigo de la agente de Daniels, Gina Rodríguez, y del editor de The Enquirer, Howard. El día después de la aparición de la cinta Access Hollywood, Davidson y Howard se enviaron mensajes de texto sobre el daño que la cinta había causado a la campaña de Trump. Entonces, Howard le pidió a la agente de Daniels que le enviara otro mensaje a su jefe, Pecker.Los ejecutivos del Enquirer alertaron a Cohen, quien le pidió ayuda a Pecker para contener la historia.Howard regateó con la agente de Daniels, pero cuando le presentó a Pecker una oferta para comprar la historia por 120.000 dólares, el editor se negó.“Tal vez llame a Michael para avisarle y que él se encargue desde allí”, escribió Howard.Dylan Howard, editor del National Enquirer, conectó a Cohen con un abogado de Daniels para discutir un pago por la historia de su encuentro con Trump.Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images para American MediaEsa noche, Cohen habló por teléfono con Trump, Pecker y Howard, según los registros obtenidos por las autoridades federales. Howard lo puso en contacto con el abogado, Davidson, quien negociaría el acuerdo en nombre de Daniels.Tres días después de la difusión de la cinta de Access Hollywood, Cohen aceptó pagar 130.000 dólares en un acuerdo que amenazaba con graves sanciones económicas para Daniels si alguna vez hablaba de su aventura con Trump. El contrato utilizó seudónimos: Peggy Peterson, o “PP”, para Daniels, y David Dennison, o “DD”, para Trump. Sus identidades solo se revelaban en una carta adjunta.Daniels firmó su copia sobre la cajuela de un auto cerca de un plató de filmación de una película pornográfica en Calabasas, California. Cohen firmó en nombre de Trump.Pero Cohen pospuso el pago. Ha dicho que estaba intentando averiguar de dónde sacar el dinero mientras Trump hacía campaña. Según Cohen, Trump había aprobado el pago y delegado en él y en el director financiero de la Organización Trump la tarea de organizarlo. Consideraron opciones para canalizar el dinero a través de la empresa, dijo Cohen, pero no se decidieron por una solución.Daniels comenzó a sentir que Trump intentaba darle largas al asunto hasta después de las elecciones del 8 de noviembre; si perdía, su historia perdería valor. A mediados de octubre, después de que Cohen incumpliera dos plazos del pago, el abogado de Daniels canceló el acuerdo, y la actriz porno empezó de nuevo a vender la historia. A la semana siguiente, Howard envió un mensaje de texto a Cohen diciéndole que si Daniels lo hacía público, su trabajo para encubrir el encuentro sexual también podría darse a conocer.“Podría hacernos ver muy mal a todos”, escribió Howard.Cohen aceptó hacer el pago de su propio bolsillo. Habló brevemente con Trump en dos ocasiones. Luego, transfirió 130.000 dólares de su línea personal de crédito a la cuenta de una empresa ficticia de Delaware y se los transfirió al abogado de Daniels.Davidson hizo circular un nuevo acuerdo de dinero por silencio. Daniels lo firmó y notarizó en una tienda UPS cerca de un Walmart Supercenter en Forney, Texas, cerca de su casa.“Espero que todo esté bien entre nosotros”, le escribió Cohen a Davidson en un mensaje de texto después.“Le aseguro que todo está muy bien”, respondió el abogado.Daniels guardó silencio. Una semana y media después, Trump ganó las elecciones.Una vez en la Casa Blanca, Trump se ocupó de otro asunto relacionado con Daniels. Firmó cheques para reembolsarle a Cohen el soborno.Jonah E. Bromwich More

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      Indictment Week?

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      If Trump is indicted, this week will be unlike any other in American politics.Shortly before a grand jury in New York State indicts somebody, the person typically gets a chance to testify to the jury. The opportunity is a sign that the investigation is wrapping up and that prosecutors are giving the target a chance to tell his or her side of the story. Typically, the target declines to do so and waits to mount a defense until later.In recent weeks, Manhattan prosecutors invited Donald Trump to testify to a grand jury that is looking into his undisclosed payment of hush money during the 2016 campaign to Stormy Daniels, a porn star with whom he allegedly had an affair. Many legal observers interpreted that step as a sign that the jury could indict Trump soon. Over the weekend, Trump said that he expected to be arrested this week.If that happens, it would be an unprecedented event. No other U.S. president, sitting or former, has ever been charged with a crime.In today’s newsletter, we’ll help you prepare for a week that may be unlike any other in American political history. We will walk you through the issues in the Manhattan case and examine the arguments for and against charging Trump. We’ll also lay out the potential political consequences for him, the other 2024 Republican candidates and President Biden.Hush money, the detailsShortly before the 2016 presidential election, Daniels received a $130,000 payment in return for staying silent about a decade-old claim of an affair with Trump. The payment came from Michael Cohen, then Trump’s lawyer, and Trump reimbursed Cohen with personal checks while Trump was president. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to crimes related to the payment and served a prison sentence.(Here’s the fuller story behind the payoff, by our colleague Michael Rothfeld.)If the grand jury does bring charges against Trump, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, will oversee the case. And Bragg will likely accuse Trump of covering up the reimbursements to Cohen. Falsifying business records can be a felony in New York if done to conceal another crime. In this case, the other crime could be a violation of election law: Cohen’s payment to Daniels. The most likely charge Trump faces is punishable by up to four years in prison.Why charge him?There are two main arguments for doing so: the evidence and the larger context of Trump’s behavior.The evidence that Trump broke the law seems substantial: It includes testimony from Cohen and others, as well as Trump’s personal checks to Cohen. The hush money and the cover-up of it, in the final weeks of a close presidential race, seem to have been a brazen violation of campaign finance rules. To overlook the violation could encourage future candidates to ignore the law, too.It’s true that prosecutors have typically treated presidents with deference, but Trump is not like any other former president. He has repeatedly shown disdain for laws and traditions that predecessors from both parties followed: He told thousands of lies while in office; refused to participate in a peaceful transfer of power; used the power of the presidency to benefit his company; pressured a foreign leader to smear a political rival; and much more. At a certain point, the rule of law becomes meaningless if anybody can repeatedly ignore it.Why not charge him?There are also two main arguments for not charging Trump in the New York case:This case would rely on combining two charges — falsifying business records to cover up a campaign finance violation — that New York prosecutors have never before combined in this way. “The case is not a slam dunk, to be sure,” said our colleague Ben Protess, who has been covering the case. (But Ben added that the charges could resonate with a Manhattan jury.) Some legal experts believe that the first criminal charges filed against a former president should not depend on a novel prosecutorial approach.The federal government has a process — honed over decades, by both Democratic and Republican lawyers — for investigating presidents and candidates. (Trump, of course, is also a 2024 presidential candidate.) Local prosecutors have spent far less time thinking about the legal and political impact of doing so. In today’s polarized political environment, it’s not hard to imagine that an indictment in this case could lower the bar for partisan local prosecutors to bring future cases against national politicians.The political impactIn the short term, an indictment seems likely to help Trump politically. It will draw attention to him, and he often performs best when he has a foil.As our colleague Maggie Haberman told us: “I do think an indictment, if it happens, will galvanize his supporters. He will describe the case as trivial, a point some Democrats have argued, and he will insist it’s all part of a broader Democratic Party conspiracy against him to help President Biden in his re-election effort. He’s already fund-raising off it, and he will make selling this to his supporters as another instance of him being victimized central to his campaign.”Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, agreed: “Many G.O.P. elites will defend Trump, and there may even be some limited short-term upside here,” Nate said.But Nate also thinks the risks to Trump’s 2024 campaign ultimately seem bigger than the potential benefits. An indictment — on top of Trump’s 2020 loss and the poor performance of his allies in the 2022 midterms — could become one more reason for some Republican voters to look for an alternative. “I think there’s plainly much more downside for Trump than upside,” Nate said.When Maggie asked Liam Donovan, a veteran Republican strategist, for his view, he made a different but related point: An indictment may help Trump in the primary and hurt him in a campaign against Biden. “Legal escalation would be a significant blow in a general election where he needs to broaden his support, but any event that polarizes the primary in terms of pro- or anti-Trump sentiment only serves to harden his core support,” Donovan said.For moreThe grand jury may hear today from a critic attacking Cohen’s credibility.Republicans, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, are rushing to Trump’s defense.Trump’s allies are pressuring Ron DeSantis, his rival, to speak out or risk alienating Republicans.New York officials are drafting security plans for potential protests. But McCarthy has urged people to stay calm if Trump is arrested, Politico reports.Trump is also facing a few other inquiries: into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia; his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; and his potential obstruction of an investigation into classified documents.Here are charges, including contempt of court and bookkeeping fraud, that could arise from the investigations.THE LATEST NEWSEconomyThe Credit Suisse headquarters in Zurich.Lea Meienberg for The New York TimesThe Swiss bank UBS will buy its rival Credit Suisse for $3.2 billion. Switzerland brokered the agreement to try to contain a growing economic crisis.Investors said the deal valued Credit Suisse so cheaply that it could prompt a reassessment of other banks’ value.The Fed and other countries’ central banks are working together to steady the global financial system by making the dollar available for lending.In the years before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, it received repeated warnings from the Fed.InternationalA photograph released by state media when Vladimir Putin met Xi Jinping in Beijing last year.Sputnik, via ReutersXi Jinping, China’s leader, is visiting Russia today. He said he wants to broker peace with Ukraine, but the West sees the visit as a show of support for Vladimir Putin.The U.S. is trying to limit Russia’s growing influence in Africa, starting with Chad.America invaded Iraq 20 years ago today. The war haunts the U.S. government as a lesson in failed policymaking.Sulaiman Fayadh Sulaiman, who was shot and paralyzed as a 3-year-old in Iraq, belongs to a generation of Iraqis traumatized by the war. Read their stories.Other Big StoriesAvalanches killed two people in Colorado.Burning space-station equipment lit up the sky in California as it re-entered the atmosphere.A woman named an Olympic rowing legend in a sex abuse accusation. OpinionsGail Collins and Bret Stephens discuss Silicon Valley Bank and Ron DeSantis’s views on Ukraine.Banking is a critical form of public infrastructure that we pretend is a private act of risk management, Ezra Klein writes.MORNING READSGolf between calls: Working from home has created an afternoon-fun economy.Metropolitan Diary: A woman in a feather hat feeding her Pomeranian cannoli.Quiz time: Take our latest news quiz and share your score (the average was 8.3).Advice from Wirecutter: How to find the best running shoes for you.Lives Lived: Cruz Miguel Ortíz Cuadra was a food historian and Puerto Rico’s leading gastronomy expert, defining the island’s cuisine. He died at 67.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICMississippi forward Madison Scott, right, shooting.Josie Lepe/Associated PressAn upset: Stanford fell to Ole Miss in the women’s N.C.A.A. basketball tournament yesterday. It’s the first time a No. 1 seed has missed the Sweet 16 since 2009.Familiar loss: Kansas State knocked Kentucky out of the men’s tournament, fueling simmering resentment between Kentucky’s coach and fan base.Team U.S.A. advances: The Americans will face either Mexico or Japan in the World Baseball Classic final after last night’s 14-2 romp over Cuba. A win would give Team U.S.A. back-to-back titles.ARTS AND IDEAS Ice in Menomonie, Wis.Erinn SpringerThe sound of meltingScientists who study the climate often record the sounds that ice makes, like the roar of glaciers as they glide and contract. The sounds are so intense that they have become a music genre, one that researchers and artists hope can help people understand global warming in a visceral way.“When people like me start talking about melting ice, it seems so far-off and unconnected from our everyday lives,” said Grant Deane, a researcher at the University of California‌‌, San Diego. “Music can make those connections.”Hear it: Listen to a Spotify playlist of ice music.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookJohn Kernick for The New York TimesSticky tomato meets crisp cheese in this cheesy white bean-tomato bake. It’s one of the recipes that kids love, a collection of dishes nominated by parents.What to Read“The Nursery” paints an honest, frightening and claustrophobic picture of new motherhood.TravelHotels designed for a spring getaway.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was bullfrog. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Tremble (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. The original World Cup soccer trophy was stolen 57 years ago today in London. A dog named Pickles found it wrapped in newspaper on the ground a week later.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about TikTok.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Trump Grand Jury Could Hear From Critic of Prosecution’s Star Witness

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      The grand jury considering the hush-money case against Mr. Trump might hear the testimony of lawyer Robert J. Costello, a critic of the ex-president’s fixer.A Manhattan grand jury that is expected to vote soon on whether to indict Donald J. Trump may hear testimony Monday attacking the prosecution’s star witness, according to people with knowledge of the matter.The testimony would come from a lawyer, Robert J. Costello, who would appear at the request of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the people said. Mr. Costello was once a legal adviser to Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, who has been a key witness for the Manhattan district attorney’s office.Mr. Costello and Mr. Cohen had a falling out, and Mr. Costello would appear solely to undermine Mr. Cohen’s credibility, the people said.Under New York law, a person who is expected to be indicted can request that a witness appear on his or her behalf. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have asked that Mr. Costello testify, but the final decision rests with the grand jury; it is unclear whether they have made a decision. The grand jury has been hearing evidence about the former president’s involvement in a hush money payment to a porn star.Mr. Costello’s appearance would come soon after Mr. Cohen concluded his own grand jury testimony. If Mr. Costello testifies, there is also a chance that Mr. Cohen will be asked to return to rebut some of Mr. Costello’s assertions.A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment, as did Mr. Costello. A lawyer for Mr. Cohen, Lanny J. Davis, declined to comment.The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, is expected to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump as soon as this week. There have been several signals that charges may be imminent: The prosecutors gave Mr. Trump an opportunity to testify, a right given to people who will soon face indictment. They have now questioned nearly every major player in the hush money saga in front of the grand jury.Mr. Cohen made the $130,000 hush money payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, to bury her story of an affair with Mr. Trump.Michael D. Cohen arriving at 80 Centre Street for his 19th appearance being interviewed by the District Attorney’s office in New York this month.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesThe payment came in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Mr. Trump subsequently reimbursed Mr. Cohen. Prosecutors are expected to accuse Mr. Trump of overseeing the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records. The records falsely stated that the payments to Mr. Cohen were for “legal expenses.”Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, as well as having had an affair with Ms. Daniels, and has blasted the investigation as politically motivated. He has also called Mr. Bragg, a Democrat and the first Black person to serve as the district attorney, a “racist.”Mr. Costello’s appearance in the grand jury on Monday would likely kick off a string of attacks from Mr. Trump’s lawyers on Mr. Cohen’s credibility. If the case goes to trial, they are expected to highlight that Mr. Cohen himself pleaded guilty to federal crimes in 2018 stemming from the hush money payment, and to bring up other episodes from the former fixer’s personal history.But prosecutors may counter that Mr. Cohen was lying about the hush money payment on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and has been consistent in the telling of his story in recent years.Mr. Costello is likely to argue that Mr. Cohen can’t be trusted. In 2018, as Mr. Cohen was facing the federal investigation into the hush money, a mutual friend introduced the two men. Mr. Costello offered to represent Mr. Cohen, and they spent hours meeting and speaking by phone.As a Republican lawyer with ties to Mr. Trump’s legal team, Mr. Costello offered to serve as a bridge between Mr. Cohen and the president’s lawyers. At one point, Mr. Costello contacted one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers to ask if the president might pardon Mr. Cohen.But the pardon never came, and Mr. Cohen never formally retained Mr. Costello. Mr. Cohen later waived their attorney-client privilege, Mr. Costello has said.Their relationship worsened as Mr. Cohen broke from Mr. Trump, and became one of his primary antagonists.“We will not be involved in that journey,” Mr. Costello wrote Mr. Cohen in a 2018 email, adding that his law firm “will be sending you a bill.” When it came, Mr. Cohen refused to pay. More

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      Inside the Payoff to Stormy Daniels That May Lead to Trump’s Indictment

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      Manhattan prosecutors investigating a payout to Stormy Daniels may be poised to make Donald J. Trump the first former president ever to be criminally indicted.At the time, it all was more tawdry than momentous. A reality star invited a porn actress half his age to a hotel room after a round in a celebrity golf tournament. She arrived in a spangly gold dress and strappy heels. He promised to put her on television and then, she says, they slept together.Yet the chain of events flowing from the 2006 encounter that the adult film star, Stormy Daniels, has said she had with the television personality, Donald J. Trump, has led to the brink of a historic development: the first criminal indictment of a former American president.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, has signaled he is preparing to seek felony charges against Mr. Trump; Mr. Bragg is expected to accuse him of concealing a $130,000 hush-money payment that Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s lawyer and fixer, made to Ms. Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.A conviction would be likely to hinge on prosecutors’ proving that Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen and falsified business records when he did so, possibly to hide an election law violation.It would not be a simple case. Prosecutors are expected to use a legal theory that has not been assessed in New York courts, raising the possibility that a judge could throw out or limit the charges. The episode has been examined by both the Federal Election Commission and federal prosecutors in New York; neither took action against Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has denied having sex with Ms. Daniels and said he did nothing wrong. The former president, who is seeking the Republican nomination for the White House, has made it clear that he will cast the indictment as a political “witch hunt” and use it to rally his supporters. On Saturday, he predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday and called for protests.The prosecutors’ chief witness would be Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations in August 2018, admitting he helped arrange the Daniels payment — and another to a former Playboy model — to aid Mr. Trump’s presidential bid at the behest of Mr. Trump.Any indictment of Mr. Trump brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, would rely on a legal theory that has not been tested in New York courts, making its success far from assured.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesAn indictment would mark another extraordinary episode in the Trump era: The former president — whose tenure closed with a riot at the Capitol, who tried to overturn a fair election and who is under investigation for failing to return classified material — may face his first criminal charge for paying off a porn star.A Lake Tahoe encounterMs. Daniels, born Stephanie Gregory and raised mostly in a ramshackle ranch house in Baton Rouge, La., was 27 in July 2006, when she met Mr. Trump, then 60, at the celebrity golf tournament in Nevada.As a child, she wrote in her 2018 memoir, “Full Disclosure,” she felt ashamed and motivated after overhearing a friend’s father refer to her as “white trash.” Attracted by the money she could make, Ms. Daniels started as an exotic dancer even before she finished high school, working at a local joint called Cinnamon’s. At 23, she began acting in pornographic movies and soon married the first of her four husbands: Bartholomew Clifford, who directed adult films under the name “Pat Myne.”When he met Ms. Daniels, Mr. Trump had largely transitioned from real estate mogul to reality star; he had traveled to the tournament without his third wife, Melania, who remained behind with their newborn son. Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels crossed paths on the golf course and later in the gift room, where they were photographed together at a booth for her porn studio, Wicked Pictures. He invited her to dinner.As they chatted that night in Mr. Trump’s penthouse at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe — she has said he wore black silk pajamas and slippers — he told her that she should be on “The Apprentice,” an NBC reality show. She doubted he could make it happen. He assured her he could, she said.Afterward, he would phone her occasionally from a blocked number, calling her “Honeybunch.” They saw each other at least twice more in 2007, at a launch party for the short-lived Trump Vodka and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where they watched “Shark Week.” But they did not sleep together again. And Mr. Trump never put her on “The Apprentice.” Still, he kept calling, she has said. Eventually, she stopped answering.Selling storiesStormy Daniels, an adult film star, was paid $130,000 by Mr. Trump’s fixer in exchange for her silence.Shannon Stapleton/ReutersSince 2000, Mr. Trump had staged long-shot presidential runs that more resembled publicity stunts than serious bids for office. He kicked off another in 2011, promoting conspiracy theories that then-President Barack Obama had been born outside the United States. As he did so, Ms. Daniels, still bitter, began working with an agent to see if she could sell the story of their liaison.They negotiated a $15,000 deal with Life & Style, a celebrity magazine, telling its reporter that Ms. Daniels believed Mr. Trump’s offer to make her a contestant had been a lie, according to a transcript later published online.“Just to impress you, to try to sleep with you?” the reporter asked. “Yeah,” Ms. Daniels responded. “And I guess it worked.”When the magazine contacted the Trump Organization for comment, Michael Cohen returned the call. A lawyer who had joined the company four years earlier, Mr. Cohen had become Mr. Trump’s fixer, diving headlong into resolving thorny problems for his boss and the Trump family. Mr. Cohen threatened to sue, the magazine killed the story, and Ms. Daniels did not get paid.Mr. Trump, for his part, dropped out of the race and continued hosting “The Apprentice.”That October, Ms. Daniels’s story about Mr. Trump surfaced briefly after her agent leaked it to a gossip blog called “The Dirty,” trying to gin up interest from a paying publication. A couple of media outlets followed up, but none offered payment. Ms. Daniels denied the story, and her agent had a lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., Keith Davidson, get the post taken down.As Mr. Obama prepared to leave office in 2015, Mr. Trump decided to run for president once more. That August, he sat in his office at Trump Tower with Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the publisher of American Media Inc. and its flagship tabloid, The National Enquirer.Mr. Pecker, a longtime friend of Mr. Trump’s, had used The Enquirer to boost Mr. Trump’s past presidential runs. He promised to publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and negative ones about opponents, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Pecker also agreed to work with Mr. Cohen to find and suppress stories that might damage Mr. Trump’s new efforts, a practice known as “catch and kill.”The National Enquirer, a tabloid run by David Pecker, played a central role in efforts to “catch and kill” negative stories about Mr. Trump.Marion Curtis, via Associated PressIn spring 2016, Ms. Daniels attempted through her agent to sell her story again — this time for more than $200,000. But the publications she approached all passed, including The Enquirer.Around the same time, Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model, began exploring how to monetize her own tale of sleeping with Mr. Trump. Ms. McDougal, Playboy’s 1998 Playmate of the Year, has said she had an affair with Mr. Trump starting in 2006, when she was 35. They had spent time together in his Trump Tower apartment and at the same golf tournament where Ms. Daniels encountered him. But Ms. McDougal ended the relationship in 2007, she has said. Mr. Trump has denied the affair.In 2016, with her modeling career flagging, Ms. McDougal hired Mr. Davidson, the same lawyer who had helped Stormy Daniels remove the 2011 blog post.Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, said she also had an affair with Mr. Trump and was paid by The National Enquirer for her story, which was never published.Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BacardiThe lawyer approached The Enquirer’s editor, Dylan Howard, about buying Ms. McDougal’s story, and Mr. Howard and Mr. Pecker both briefed Mr. Cohen, three people with knowledge of the discussions have said. In late June, Mr. Trump personally appealed to Mr. Pecker for help in keeping Ms. McDougal quiet, according to an account Mr. Pecker gave federal prosecutors.But the tabloid did nothing until Ms. McDougal was about to give an interview to ABC News. In early August, American Media agreed to pay Ms. McDougal $150,000 for the exclusive rights to her story about Mr. Trump, camouflaging the real purpose of the deal by guaranteeing she would appear on two magazine covers, among other things, five people familiar with the events have said.American Media would later admit, in a deal to avoid federal prosecution, that the principal purpose of the agreement was to suppress Ms. McDougal’s story, which the company had no intention of publishing.Stormy Daniels, meanwhile, still had not found any takers for her story. Her luck changed in early October.‘It could look awfully bad’Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, right, went to prison in part for campaign finance violations related to hush-money payments. He has turned against the former president and could testify against him.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesThe news hit the presidential race like a bomb. On Oct. 7, 2016, The Washington Post published what would become known as the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Mr. Trump, unwittingly on a live microphone, was recorded describing in lewd terms how he groped women.The people surrounding Stormy Daniels immediately realized that Mr. Trump’s new vulnerability made her more of a threat — and thus gave her story value.Mr. Davidson, the Los Angeles lawyer, was also friendly with Ms. Daniels’s agent, Gina Rodriguez, and with The Enquirer’s editor, Mr. Howard. On the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged, Mr. Davidson and Mr. Howard texted about the damage it had done to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Then Mr. Howard asked Ms. Daniels’s agent to send another pitch for his boss, Mr. Pecker.The Enquirer executives alerted Mr. Cohen; Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Pecker for help containing it.Mr. Howard haggled with Ms. Daniels’s agent, but when he presented Mr. Pecker with an offer to buy the story for $120,000, the publisher refused.“Perhaps I call Michael and advise him and he can take it from there,” Mr. Howard wrote.Dylan Howard, the editor of The National Enquirer, connected Mr. Cohen to a lawyer for Ms. Daniels to discuss a payment for the story of her tryst with Mr. Trump.Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for American MediaThat night, Mr. Cohen spoke by phone to Mr. Trump, Mr. Pecker and Mr. Howard, according to records obtained by federal authorities. Mr. Howard connected him to the lawyer, Mr. Davidson, who would negotiate the deal for Ms. Daniels.Three days after the “Access Hollywood” tape’s release, Mr. Cohen agreed to pay $130,000 in a deal that threatened severe financial penalties for Ms. Daniels if she ever spoke about her affair with Mr. Trump. The contract used pseudonyms: Peggy Peterson, or “P.P.,” for Ms. Daniels, and David Dennison, or “D.D.,” for Mr. Trump. Their identities were revealed only in a side letter.Ms. Daniels signed her copy on the trunk of a car near a porn set in Calabasas, Calif. Mr. Cohen signed on Mr. Trump’s behalf.But Mr. Cohen delayed paying. He has said he was trying to figure out where to get the money while Mr. Trump campaigned. According to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump had approved the payment and delegated to him and the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer the task of arranging it. They considered options for funneling the money through the company, Mr. Cohen said, but did not settle on a solution.Ms. Daniels began to believe that Mr. Trump was trying to stall until after the Nov. 8 election; if he lost, her story would lose its value. In mid October, after Mr. Cohen had blown two deadlines, Ms. Daniels’s lawyer canceled the deal, and the porn actress again began shopping the story. The next week, Mr. Howard texted Mr. Cohen that if Ms. Daniels went public, their work to cover up the sexual encounter might also become known.“It could look awfully bad for everyone,” Mr. Howard wrote.Mr. Cohen agreed to make the payment himself. He spoke briefly by phone with Mr. Trump, twice. Then he transferred about $130,000 from his home equity line of credit into the account of a Delaware shell company and wired it to Ms. Daniels’s lawyer.Mr. Davidson circulated a new hush-money agreement. Ms. Daniels signed and notarized it at a UPS store near a Walmart Supercenter in Forney, Texas, near her home.“I hope we are good,” Mr. Cohen texted Mr. Davidson afterward.“I assure you we are very good,” the lawyer replied.Ms. Daniels remained silent. A week and a half later, Mr. Trump won the election.Once he was in the White House, Mr. Trump handled one more piece of business related to Stormy Daniels. He signed checks to reimburse Mr. Cohen for paying her off.Jonah E. Bromwich More

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      As a Possible Indictment Looms, Trump’s Team Plans to Attack

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      If the former president faces criminal charges, his campaign plans to begin a broad offensive against Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney and a Democrat, accusing him of political bias.As former President Donald J. Trump faces likely criminal charges, his campaign is preparing to wage a political war.With an indictment looming from the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, Mr. Trump’s campaign is laying the groundwork for a broad attack on Mr. Bragg, a Democrat. According to two of Mr. Trump’s political allies, the campaign will aim to portray any charges as part of a coordinated offensive by the Democratic Party against Mr. Trump, who is trying to become only the second former president to win a new term after leaving office.It is unclear what data points, if any, the Trump team plans to point to beyond Mr. Bragg’s party registration in order to make a case that the district attorney is part of a broader political conspiracy against the former president. It is also uncertain whether Mr. Trump will add lawyers to his legal defense team or bring on a communications adviser to play a more traditional role of responding to what will be a crush of media questions related to a potential indictment.Mr. Trump’s two allies said his campaign was adding staff members, particularly to focus on pushing out their message and their attacks on the prosecutors. In addition, the campaign has been putting together a database listing everyone — members of Congress, legal experts, media figures — who have cast doubts on the strength of the district attorney’s case, the allies said.Specifically, his campaign team plans on trying to connect Mr. Bragg’s investigation into Mr. Trump to President Biden, who is expected to seek re-election. The Justice Department has spent months investigating Mr. Trump in separate inquiries into his possession of hundreds of classified documents at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, and his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.Those efforts led to the most visible moment when Mr. Trump focused the anger of his supporters on the institutions of government, the lead-up to the violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Underscoring the degree to which Mr. Trump’s campaign is again relying on outrage from his supporters, a campaign official maintained that the nation would not “tolerate” the prosecution and would see it as an effort to influence the 2024 election.“President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most radical left Democrats are making that clear,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman. He listed a series of other investigations that Mr. Trump has faced and referred to the Manhattan case as “the nuclear button,” calling it a “political donation” by Mr. Bragg “to Joe Biden.” And the Trump team plans to highlight a donation to a political action committee made by the philanthropist George Soros, a subject of frequent right-wing attacks, that was intended to help Mr. Bragg.A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.Mr. Trump’s allies say that tying Mr. Biden to what is taking place in Manhattan will be a key aspect of the campaign’s response. And the degree to which the Trump team plans to make a history-making indictment of a former president a central campaign message is likely to set a new political precedent.“A Trump indictment will immediately be added to his campaign platform and talking points, another first in presidential politics,” said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist who has observed Mr. Trump and presidential campaigns for decades.While he was in office, Mr. Trump was shielded by a Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Already, Mr. Trump has spent the better part of two years attacking Mr. Bragg, who is Black, as “racist” and as continuing efforts to harm him, after two impeachment inquiries and a two-year special counsel investigation into whether he obstructed justice and whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russians.But since declaring his third presidential campaign in November, Mr. Trump has made attacking the investigators an increasingly intense focus.Other political allies of Mr. Trump made clear that there would be efforts to highlight how his Republican rivals handle the news of any indictment, and whether they endorse it or defend him. Mr. Trump’s allies said his advisers believed the issue could tie some of his opponents in knots, particularly his closest prospective opponent in public polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Mr. Trump has often subjected anyone who investigates him or holds him to scrutiny to slashing attacks. It remains to be seen whether the campaign’s approach will be more of the same, or will deploy new tactics, such as television ads.When Mr. Trump was in office and facing the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, some of his lawyers initially tried to follow the playbook established by aides to President Bill Clinton during his impeachment inquiry in the 1990s. In that case, separate, parallel operations were created so the work of the government could continue.But Mr. Trump, who often conflates legal and public relations issues, rejected that idea. So there was only briefly a designated spokesman handling press questions.People involved in Mr. Trump’s legal case have discussed bringing on a new lawyer to add to the existing team of Susan Necheles, a Manhattan criminal defense lawyer, and Joe Tacopina, a New York lawyer with a brawler’s attitude.Mr. Tacopina has been an aggressive defender of Mr. Trump on television. On Tuesday on MSNBC, Mr. Tacopina made several points attacking the credibility of the key witness, Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. But other comments he made left some of Mr. Trump’s allies stunned by what he was articulating.Mr. Tacopina bluntly stated that there was a political benefit to Mr. Trump from an indictment.“If they bring this case, I believe this will catapult him into the White House,” Mr. Tacopina said of Mr. Trump on MSNBC. “I believe it, because this will show how they’re weaponizing the justice system.”Mr. Tacopina insisted that what Mr. Trump did — signing off on reimbursement payments to Mr. Cohen, who had made a $130,000 hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump — was done at Mr. Cohen’s suggestion and “was not a crime.”At one point, as the interviewer, Ari Melber, was reading from a piece of paper, Mr. Tacopina tried to grab it unsuccessfully across the set. When Mr. Tacopina was pushed on why Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One in 2018 that he did not know about the payments, he insisted it was not a lie.“A lie to me is something material under oath in a procedure,” Mr. Tacopina told Mr. Melber.“Here’s why it’s not a lie,” Mr. Tacopina added. “Because it was a confidential settlement. So, if he acknowledged that, he would be violating the confidential settlement.”He went on: “So, is it the truth? Of course it’s not the truth. Was he supposed to tell the truth? He would be in violation of the agreement if he told the truth. So, by him doing that, by him doing that, he was abiding by not only his rights, but Stormy Daniels’s rights.”Jonah E. Bromwich More