New York State Criminal Case Against Trump (71543-23)

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      You Could Have Walked a Block Away and Had No Clue Trump Just Got Arrested

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      I missed George Santos at the protest outside the courthouse where Donald Trump was later arraigned on Tuesday, and I couldn’t hear a thing Marjorie Taylor Greene said over the screams of counter-demonstrators and the incessant blowing of whistles. They were the two biggest names who turned out to show their support for Trump on a day that felt at once historic and very small.The police put up metal barriers dividing a block-sized park near the courthouse in two, with dozens of Trump opponents on one side, dozens of Trump acolytes on the other, and cops everywhere. Altogether, there were hundreds of people, often screaming at each other across the divide, chants of “U.S.A.” competing with chants of “Lock Him Up!” Some characters were familiar from the Trump campaign road show, including Dion Cini, a peddler of Trump merchandise who flew a giant “Trump or Death” flag, and Maurice Symonette, founder of the groupuscule Blacks for Trump and onetime member of a violent Black supremacist cult. “He had sex with a prostitute,” Symonette said of Trump, apparently referring to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. “How is that against the law? Who hasn’t done that?”Representative George Santos.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesRepresentative Marjorie Taylor Greene.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesOf course, Trump wasn’t indicted for his affairs, but for the steps he allegedly took to cover them up. Before the indictment was unsealed, rumors flew across Twitter that it included a conspiracy count, but in the end, all 34 counts were for falsifying business records in connection with the payoff to silence Daniels, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued was connected to a broader scheme to squelch negative stories about Trump.According to the indictment, the business record falsifications were done “with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof.” Though no other crime is charged, the statement of facts accompanying the indictment accuses Trump of violating election laws. It’s the connection to another crime that turns falsifying business records from a misdemeanor into a felony.Observers from across the political spectrum have been skeptical of the legal theory that underlies Bragg’s case. As The New York Times reported in March, “Combining the criminal charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.” Trump, in other words, may still wriggle out of this predicament.As I’ve argued before, if Trump’s role in the hush-money payments broke the law, it’s a serious matter, because those payments helped him get elected, and the plot to cover them up sent his former lawyer to prison. Trump, the statement of facts says, “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.” If this is true, it’s perverse to suggest that Trump’s success in this scheme — represented by him winning the presidency — is a reason not to prosecute him.Nevertheless, for all the hype going into Tuesday, the indictment feels anticlimactic. “True and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure,” said Bragg in his news conference after the arraignment. “They are all the more important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world.” Trump, like everyone else, should be held accountable if he failed to keep such records. We’re not owed an indictment commensurate with his depravity. Still, these are hard charges to get excited about.Indeed, what’s struck me over the last two days in New York is a distinct lack of excitement. Many who detest Trump, I suspect, have lost faith in the ability of the legal system to hold him to account. And while his supporters may threaten civil war, not many of them seem willing to brave Manhattan, which they’ve been told is a crime-ridden hellhole.Earlier this week, Roger Stone, the political dirty trickster and longtime Trump ally, promoted a Monday rally outside Trump Tower. When I went there, only a handful of people had shown up. Tuesday’s turnout was larger, but still felt more desultory than menacing, despite some threatening rhetoric. (One man carried a sign with a noose affixed to it, signifying his hopes for members of the “Liberal Biased News Media.”) You could walk a block away and be unaware that anything was happening.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesMaybe this is to be expected: Many of the people who might have led mob violence have been either indicted or convicted for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. And certainly, there remains an acute danger from Trump fanatics acting alone. The way the Trump camp has targeted the daughter of the judge overseeing the Trump case has been particularly unconscionable. Arguing that the daughter’s political work constituted a conflict for her father, people including Greene, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump shared a story featuring her photograph on social media, and Trump went after her in his post-arraignment speech, likely putting her safety at risk.But while Trump still has an obsessive following, he can no longer command the country’s stunned attention, even by getting arrested. Maybe that’s the consolation of an arraignment that doesn’t feel at all momentous.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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      Biden Has the Oval Office. But Trump Has Center Stage.

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      The White House hopes the chaos of Donald Trump’s legal challenges will reinforce the reasons voters turned to President Biden in 2020.WASHINGTON — The president of the United States spent four minutes on Tuesday talking to the American public about the possibilities and dangers of artificial intelligence. No, not that president. The one who actually occupies the Oval Office. Americans could be forgiven if they momentarily forgot the most powerful person in the country. As helicopters and cameras followed every step of the Donald J. Trump legal drama in New York more than 200 miles to the north with white Ford Bronco-level intensity, President Biden faded into the background, ceding the stage to his defendant-predecessor.He seemed content to do so, at least for now. The White House made no effort to compete for attention with the arrest of a former president. Mr. Biden’s only appearance came during a meeting with his science advisers. Reporters were escorted in at 2:59 p.m., a hoarse Mr. Biden, fighting a cold, said a few words and the reporters were ushered out again at 3:03 p.m. Ten minutes later, the White House announced Mr. Biden was finished with public events for the day.The tale of two presidents on this spring afternoon, one quietly focused on technology policy, the other having his fingerprints taken, underscored the unique challenge that has confronted Mr. Biden since taking office more than two years ago. No commander in chief in more than a century has been eclipsed in the public eye by the leader he succeeded the way Mr. Biden has at times. Now with the first criminal prosecution of a former president in American history, it will be that much harder to command the national conversation.Yet it is a contrast that Mr. Biden’s team hopes will eventually benefit him. To the extent that the remainder of Mr. Biden’s term is a split screen between the 45th and 46th presidents, White House officials are willing to live with less airtime if it means their president is seen focusing on manufacturing, health care and climate change while the other one is seen focusing on pretrial motions, hostile witnesses and records of hush money paid to a porn star.“Twenty twenty-three is going to be about Trump — his legal troubles are going to be a defining story,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who was White House communications director for President Barack Obama and a senior campaign adviser to Hillary Clinton. “What does the White House do about that? On some level, that’s fine. These stories will peak, and then they’ll go away. What Biden has to be is the anti-chaos president.”In the White House briefing room, Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, deflected the obvious questions about Mr. Trump.Sarah Silbiger for The New York TimesThe wild gyrations of the Trump show, in this view, only reinforce the reasons voters turned to Mr. Biden in the first place — the appeal of a steady hand against the storm.“All of this could contribute to lack of faith in institutions, a sense of chaos, disorder, and so the Biden team has to work extra hard at showing that government can work,” Ms. Palmieri said.Still, anti-chaos may be appealing to voters exhausted by Trumpian turmoil, but it has not historically been a big ratings draw. “I assume Biden’s team will say the split-screen contrast works in their favor,” said Kevin Madden, a longtime Republican strategist. “The problem, though, is with Trump there could be days or weeks like this one where they never get their half of the screen.”No other president would want the kind of publicity that Mr. Trump is getting now, of course, but the fixation on the former president will extend beyond even this historic prosecution. Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney in Georgia, may decide soon whether to charge Mr. Trump in trying to interfere in the 2020 election, while Jack Smith, a federal special counsel, could seek indictments tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the former president’s refusal to turn over classified documents.As if those were not enough to keep the spotlight focused squarely on Mar-a-Lago rather than the White House, Mr. Trump is already scheduled to go on trial on April 25 in a civil lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a writer who has accused him of raping her. And a civil trial on allegations of financial fraud brought by Letitia James, the New York attorney general, is scheduled to follow on Oct. 2.Against all that, a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology may not seem as compelling to cable television producers or for that matter their audiences. When Mr. Biden flew to Minnesota on Monday to promote a factory making hydrogen electrolyzers, the news channels showed Mr. Trump’s private plane, the so-called “Trump Force One,” taking off for New York..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.“I’m flipping stations and shaking my head,” Michael Steele, a former Republican National Committee chairman who broke with Mr. Trump, wrote on Twitter. “It’s no wonder we can’t recover from this Trump infection because the media continues to feed Trump’s thirst to be everything everywhere all at once! On the plane, off the plane, in the car. Y’all know the actual @POTUS travelled today?”The White House was left to make the best of the situation. Jeffrey D. Zients, the new chief of staff, posted an image of the front page of The Star Tribune of Minneapolis featuring the headline “Biden touts investment in Minn.”Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, expressed no concern about the ability to connect with the public. “We think being responsive to the concerns of hard-working Americans resonates and is what they expect of a president,” he said.The nonstop motorcade-to-courthouse-to-plane-to-Florida-to-estate coverage of Mr. Trump’s arraignment and travels on Tuesday brought to mind the O.J. Simpson case for many old enough to remember the obsessive interest in the celebrity murder case. There came a moment during that saga when even President Bill Clinton was forced to share a television screen on one of his biggest nights, as he delivered his State of the Union address in 1997 at the same time a jury was handing down its verdict in the civil trial.Mr. Trump before his arraignment on Tuesday in Manhattan, where his legal drama attracted remarkable attention.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesBut that was a one-off situation. With rare exceptions, Mr. Clinton and other presidents in the modern age have enjoyed unrivaled control of the bully pulpit. For the most part, their predecessors made a point of staying out of sight. Even former presidents who outspokenly criticized their successors, like Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, hardly came close to dominating the news the way Mr. Trump does.The closest parallel to Mr. Biden’s situation may be that of William Howard Taft, who could hardly compete for attention with his larger-than-life predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who ultimately mounted an unsuccessful comeback campaign against his onetime ally in 1912. That, of course, was long before the era of social media and cable television.“It is a challenge for governing,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton. “Part of what presidents do is shift the agenda to issues they want Congress and the public to focus on. That’s hard with Trump in the picture. The advantage is it creates space for low-level policymaking outside the radar on issues that might otherwise create public controversy.”Indeed, Mr. Biden’s brief public appearance on Tuesday did not mean he was not working behind the scenes. He placed calls to President Emmanuel Macron of France and King Charles III of Britain. On his Twitter feed, he (or his tweet writers) maintained a steady patter of earnest posts, promoting his budget, congratulating college basketball tournament winners and wishing those who celebrate a happy Mahavir Jayanti marking the birth of Lord Mahavira, who created the defining rules of Jainism, an Indian religion.Mr. Biden left it to his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, to deflect the obvious questions about Mr. Trump. During her daily briefing, she talked about Finland’s ascension into NATO, Russia’s arrest of an American journalist and the president’s meeting with tech advisers. But the first arrest of a former president and “anything that is touching or relating to the case,” she declared, was off limits.Not that reporters in the White House briefing room neglected to press her. They asked about security concerns in New York and the rule of law. They inquired whether the president watched the televised proceedings and if he would consider pardoning Mr. Trump, even though a president’s pardon power does not extend to state cases like the one in New York.When one reporter noted that there is “great shock in Japan about the arrest of the opposition candidate,” Ms. Jean-Pierre appeared confused for a moment, until she realized that it was just one more effort to get her to discuss Mr. Trump.“I love how you guys are asking me this in different ways,” she said. She then repeated what she had said again and again: “I’m just not going to comment from here” before calling an end to the day’s briefing.By the evening, her briefing got 12,000 views on the White House’s YouTube channel and the president’s brief science remarks 2,100. Within hours, Mr. Trump made a prime-time statement on his arrest that millions were expected to watch. More

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      The Trump Indictment, Annotated: Analyzing the 34 Charges

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      The Manhattan district attorney’s office unveiled an indictment on Tuesday charging former President Donald J. Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a low-level felony in New York State. The charges are related to reimbursements to Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels […] More

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      From Trump to John Edwards, Charges Over Payments Hinge on the Money’s Purpose

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      In 2011, a former U.S. senator was charged in a case that resembled the one being pursed against Donald J. Trump. The prosecution did not end in a conviction.Is paying hush money a crime?In most cases, the answer is no. Hush-money agreements, also known as nondisclosure agreements, have long been used by companies and private individuals to avoid litigation and keep embarrassing information confidential. Harvey Weinstein, the former producer convicted of rape, used such agreements for years to conceal his harassment and assault of women.But the question is thornier when it comes to candidates in the midst of political campaigns, and it has not often been posed in federal or New York State courts.As it relates to former President Donald J. Trump and the porn star Stormy Daniels, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, revealed his answer on Tuesday when he unsealed an indictment of Mr. Trump: A hush-money payment can constitute a crime if made to protect a political candidate.All of the felony counts Mr. Trump is now facing stem from reimbursements to his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for paying $130,000 to Ms. Daniels in exchange for her silence about the liaison she said she had with Mr. Trump.Having charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records, Mr. Bragg’s office will have to navigate complicated legal terrain. A conviction would hinge on proving that reimbursements to Mr. Cohen were falsely disguised as legal fees to conceal another crime: perhaps a violation of election laws. The indictment did not, however, charge Mr. Trump with an election law violation; Mr. Cohen has admitted to committing one with the payment to Ms. Daniels.The case bears some similarities to the prosecution of a former United States senator, John Edwards of North Carolina, who was charged in 2011 with federal campaign finance violations for payments to help a mistress during his own presidential run in 2008. The case ended without a conviction.Federal and state campaign laws require reporting of campaign-related payments, and if they are made by third parties coordinating with the candidate, such as Mr. Cohen, they are subject to certain limits. Mr. Cohen’s payment to Ms. Daniels before the 2016 presidential election was well beyond the federal legal limit.The indictment of Mr. Trump charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business records in reimbursing Mr. Cohen for the hush money. Mr. Trump, who is once more seeking the Republican nomination for president, has denied sleeping with Ms. Daniels; called the prosecution by Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, political; and said he has done nothing wrong. Appearing in a State Supreme Court on Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty.On its own, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor in New York State — but it can be charged as a felony if it is intended to conceal another crime. In this case, the indictment accuses him of falsifying business records; an accompanying statement of facts says Mr. Trump orchestrated a scheme to violate election laws.Proving that element will most likely hinge on whether the hush money is interpreted to have been paid in the service of Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign or for personal reasons, such as shielding his wife, Melania, and youngest son, Barron, from Ms. Daniels’s story..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.That is the sort of transaction that Mr. Trump’s lawyers say took place.“This was a personal expenditure, not a campaign expenditure. Had it been a campaign expenditure, he would have used campaign funds,” one of the lawyers, Joe Tacopina, said on CNN on Sunday.Mr. Trump’s team has pointed to the failed prosecution of Mr. Edwards to bolster its argument that the payment to Ms. Daniels was not a campaign contribution.In that case, prosecutors charged Mr. Edwards with campaign finance violations related to payments that two wealthy campaign donors made for living expenses of Mr. Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, who had given birth to his child, and for travel expenses as she traveled to evade the media during his 2008 presidential campaign.But Mr. Edwards’s lawyers won an acquittal on one count and a mistrial on five other charges, which prosecutors then dismissed, by arguing that the payments were not related to the election. His lawyers showed that one of the donors continued making payments to help Ms. Hunter after Mr. Edwards suspended his campaign. And he had another convincing motive to keep Ms. Hunter and her child a secret: His wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer.Mr. Bragg’s office might be able to make a stronger case in arguing that the payment to Ms. Daniels was made to influence the election on Mr. Trump’s behalf rather than for personal reasons.For one thing, Ms. Daniels had tried to sell her story of sleeping with Mr. Trump for at least five years, but he had never before agreed to pay for her silence. Mr. Cohen did so weeks before the election, and days after the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape — in which Mr. Trump was heard talking about groping women — was made public, potentially tanking Mr. Trump’s campaign.For another, Mr. Trump met with Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the publisher of The National Enquirer, at the beginning of his campaign in August 2015 to discuss a strategy for bottling up negative stories. And Mr. Pecker’s company paid to suppress the story of another woman, the Playboy model Karen McDougal, less than three months before Ms. Daniels received her payment.Both Mr. Pecker and Mr. Cohen have testified before the grand jury that indicted Mr. Trump, and would be expected to do so at a trial.Jeff Tsai, a San Francisco lawyer and former federal prosecutor who worked on the Edwards case, said in an interview that because of the “elasticity” of whether money is primarily spent to help a campaign or for personal reasons, the facts in a particular case are extremely important.“Jurors will have to decide as to whether or not these funds, putting some of the salacious details aside, are fundamentally being used for campaign purposes,” Mr. Tsai said.One successful case brought by the Justice Department on the theory that hush money payments can violate election laws was against Mr. Cohen himself, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges in 2018 in connection with the Daniels and McDougal payments, while saying his actions had been directed by Mr. Trump. But because Mr. Cohen did not go to trial, the prosecution’s case was not tested before a judge or jury.Kate Christobek More