Hush money, catch and kill and more: A guide to unique terms used at Trump’s New York criminal trial
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York is full of terms you wouldn’t normally hear in a courtroom.
Based on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s records to conceal the nature of the hush money refunds, this is the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president and the first of Trump’s four charges to go to trial. It also has some unique terminology.
Here are some examples:
DEFINITION: According to Merriam-Webster, money is paid so that someone can keep information secret. In other words: money that someone pays someone to keep something secret.
EXAMPLE: Three payments prosecutors say were made on behalf of Trump to bury claims of marital infidelity during his 2016 presidential campaign. This concerns the National Enquirer’s $30,000 payment to a Trump Tower doorman, the $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and the $130,000 that Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen arranged to pay porn actor Stormy Daniels. to pay.
Paying hush money is not itself illegal, but authorities say the payments to suppress stories about Trump amounted to illegal campaign contributions. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to a federal campaign violation, among other unrelated crimes. National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., entered into a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors. The Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500 and declared the McDougal deal a “prohibited in-kind contribution.”
DEFINITION: As prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors in his opening statement, “catch-and-kill” is when a tabloid newspaper such as the National Enquirer “buys up damaging information about someone and demands that the source sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent him or her from taking that information or story somewhere else, and then the tabloid refuses to publish the story to prevent it from ever seeing the light of day. A non-disclosure agreement is also called a non-disclosure agreement.
EXAMPLE: Tabloids typically pay sources and subjects for the information they ultimately publish. But sometimes they pay for stories to prevent publication. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified that during a Trump Tower meeting in August 2015, he agreed to be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Under the arrangement, Pecker said he would notify Cohen of women who wanted to sell stories about Trump so that Trump’s team could “take them off the market or kill them somehow.”
Pecker testified that he had suppressed stories about other celebrities and politicians over the years using the same “catch and kill” methods, including actor and ex-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and golfer Tiger Woods. Pecker said he sometimes suppressed stories simply to help a friend or further his business interests, but often he did so to use the subject of the story to do something else, such as agreeing to an interview or posing for a magazine cover.
DEFINITION: This is the criminal charge that will be decided during Trump’s trial in New York. He is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. It is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison, although there is no guarantee Trump will be convicted at any point if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
Under New York law, a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he makes or causes to be made a false entry in the business records of a company and does so with the intent to defraud, including with intent to commit or conceal another crime. .
EXAMPLE: Prosecutors allege that Trump misrepresented payments to Cohen in Trump’s business documents as legal fees, when in reality they were a refund of the $130,000 Cohen arranged to Daniels. The documents involved include general ledger entries, invoices and checks. Prosecutors allege that Trump’s actions were a way to conceal the hush money scheme and other crimes that resulted from it, including alleged election law violations. Trump denies the accusations. His lawyers have said the payments to Cohen were for legitimate legal fees.
DEFINITION: Trump is not charged with conspiracy, but prosecutors at his trial in New York have repeatedly used the term to describe his “eyes and ears” deal with Pecker and the hush-money schemes that followed.
According to Merriam-Webster, conspiracy involves joining “a secret agreement to do an illegal or wrongful act, or an act that becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement.” Under New York law, a conspiracy involves at least two people acting with the intent to commit a crime.
EXAMPLE: Colangelo, the prosecutor, said in his opening statement that the Trump trial “involves an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election.” To convict Trump of falsifying company records, prosecutors must prove he intended to commit a new crime. Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said in court that one of the crimes Trump intended to commit was a violation of a New York election law — a crime involving a conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.
DEFINITION: Any attempt to change the outcome of an election by nefarious means, such as fraud, voter intimidation, or attempts to overturn the outcome of a race.
EXAMPLE: Prosecutors allege the hush-money scheme amounted to election interference because it involved a concerted effort to hide important information from voters to boost Trump’s chances in the 2016 race.
Not only did the National Enquirer act as the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s campaign, identifying negative stories so they could be suppressed; Pecker also testified that the tabloids, at Cohen’s behest, published stories that targeted Trump’s opponents. It also published stories that boosted Trump’s image.
It is a different kind of election interference allegation than what Trump is accused of in his cases in Washington and Georgia, in which he is accused of trying to undermine his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Trump claims that being tried while campaigning as this year’s presumptive Republican nominee is his own form of election interference.
DEFINITION: In general, a gag order is “a court order prohibiting the disclosure or discussion (such as by the press) of information relating to a matter,” according to Merriam-Webster. In Trump’s case, it’s known as an Order Restricting Extrajudicial Statements, with extrajudicial meaning outside the court.
EXAMPLE: Judge Juan M. Merchan imposed a limited gag order on Trump at the request of prosecutors on March 26. It prohibits the former president from making public statements on his behalf or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about potential witnesses regarding their participation in the case. It also prohibits comments about jurors, prosecutors other than District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and any statements intended to hinder or harass court staff, the prosecution team, or their families.
Merchan expanded the order on April 1, barring Trump from commenting about his family or Bragg’s family. The change came after Trump attacked the judge’s daughter and made false claims about her on social media.
Last Tuesday, Trump was fined $9,000 – $1,000 for each of nine separate violations of the gag order found by the judge. Prosecutors later asked for an additional $4,000 fine for what they said were additional violations of the order.
Merchan complained that $1,000 per violation is the maximum fine allowed by law and raised the possibility of imprisoning Trump if he continues to comply with the gag order, an unprecedented outcome for a former US president.
Trump’s lawyers insist he needs space to respond to criticism, including from witnesses like Cohen and Daniels, and that the gag order hampers his ability to answer questions and defend himself amid a massive amount of media coverage about his case and his candidacy.
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