Donald Trump feared that porn star Stormy Daniels could damage his presidential candidacy in 2016 by discussing their alleged sexual encounter some years earlier. So he conspired to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records of the hush-money payments made to Daniels by way of attorney Michael Cohen. Or at least that's the theory that New York prosecutors laid out Tuesday in charging the former president with 34 counts of felony fraud. Those charges, originally filed last Thursday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg under sealed indictment, have sparked a frenzy of speculation and conflicting opinions among legal experts — as did the more telling statement of facts Bragg filed. (Trump, for the record, has pleaded not guilty.)
At a press conference following Trump's arraignment, Bragg's allegations against Trump went beyond the well-known details of the Daniels payoff. They included a similar $150,000 hush-money payment to another woman, and $30,000 paid to a Trump Tower doorman who supposedly knew about an alleged illegitimate child of Trump's. (Bragg's allegations do not rest on whether or not any of these salacious rumors have any merit.) Bragg further alleged that Trump engaged in a "catch and kill" agreement with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, under which Pecker would pay for the rights to potentially damaging stories about Trump but never publish them.
