Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen went to jail for making the payment of money to Stormy Daniel to conceal an affair…..
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg got this case from his predesssor Cy Vance Jr., But intailly put it aside….
It’s back….
The DA has dealt with the players in the deal….
But has not gone after Trump directly yet…..
(Any trial will be complex…)
This is second criminal case in the works with Trump involved on the state level….
Another DA’s criminal case is brewing down in Georgia….
The Fed’s have several of their own….
But DA’s do NOT have a rule NOT to go after President’s, eh?
Typical Trump….
Fucking up a good thing….
This time for future President’s…..
The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday will begin presenting evidence to a grand jury about Donald J. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former president in the coming months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The grand jury was recently impaneled, and witness testimony will soon begin, a clear signal that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump.
On Monday, one of the witnesses was seen with his lawyer entering the building in Lower Manhattan where the grand jury is sitting. The witness, David Pecker, is the former publisher of The National Enquirer, the tabloid that helped broker the deal with the porn star, Stormy Daniels.
As prosecutors prepare to reconstruct the events surrounding the payment for grand jurors, they have sought to interview several witnesses, including the tabloid’s former editor, Dylan Howard, and two employees at Mr. Trump’s company, the people said. Mr. Howard and the Trump Organization employees, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, have not yet testified before the grand jury….
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The first visible sign of progress for Mr. Bragg came this month when Mr. Cohen appeared at the district attorney’s office in Lower Manhattan to meet with prosecutors for the first time in more than a year. Now, he is expected to return for at least one additional interview with the prosecutors in February, one of the people said.
The lawyer who represented Ms. Daniels in the hush money deal, Keith Davidson, is also expected to meet with prosecutors in the coming weeks.
Mr. Trump’s company was instrumental in the deal, court records from Mr. Cohen’s federal case show.
Although Mr. McConney and Ms. Tarasoff were not central players, they helped arrange for the Trump Organization to reimburse Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid Ms. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Allen H. Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, was also involved in reimbursing Mr. Cohen. And, according to Mr. Cohen, Mr. Weisselberg was involved in a discussion with Mr. Trump about whether to pay Ms. Daniels….
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For Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors, the core of any possible case is the way in which the Trump Organization reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid Ms. Daniels and how the company recorded that payment internally. According to court papers in Mr. Cohen’s federal case, the company falsely identified the reimbursements as legal expenses.
The district attorney’s office now appears to be focusing on whether erroneously classifying the payments to Mr. Cohen as a legal expense ran afoul of a New York law that prohibits the falsifying of business records.
Violations of that law can be charged as a misdemeanor. To make it a felony, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the records to help commit or conceal a second crime in what prosecutors would argue was a violation of a New York State election law. That second aspect has largely gone untested, and would therefore make for a risky legal case against the former president….