Manhattan DA trying to charge Donald Trump paying $130,000 in hush-money to porn star Stormy Daniels

The awakened Manhattan district attorney is set to restart a legal investigation into Donald Trump over a hush money payment to a porn star who claims to have had a one-night stand with the ex-president.

Alvin Bragg would investigate whether the $130,000 illegal payment to Stormy Daniels made shortly before the 2016 presidential election could be linked to Trump.

It was created by the president’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, to silence Daniels’ claims of a one-night stand in 2006 when Trump’s third wife Melania was pregnant with their son Barron, now 16.

Trump denies having sex with Daniels, but Cohen was later convicted of making an illegal campaign contribution. Cohen was later refunded the money by Trump, and Bragg will now probably try to argue that this proves there was a conspiracy between the two men.

His agency, under predecessor Cyrus Vance, previously investigated Trump, but that investigation seemed to come to a halt earlier this year.

According to The New York Times, Bragg’s strategy is an untested one. He is believed to be pivoting former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to help him build the case.

Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, has already said he used his own money to pay Daniels off with Trump and with The Trump Organization, later paying him back. He was sentenced to three years in prison

Cohen served three years in prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations related to the payments as part of a federal investigation.

He has always maintained that he followed Trump’s orders.

Trump has consistently denied having an affair with Daniels, explaining the payment as a personal matter rather than a campaign expense.

In that particular federal case, former district attorney Cyrus Vance investigated whether Trump had violated state laws by making the payment and whether records from The Trump Organization had been falsified during the trial.

Falsifying company records may be classified as a felony in New York. To make it a felony, prosecutors would have to show that Trump falsified the hush money data to help commit or cover up a second crime.

The Trump Organization was subpoenaed by the district attorney in late 2019 for the specific records linking the payments made to Cohen showing how he helped fund Daniels.

Woke Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is now considering adding new charges against Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization

But the investigation suddenly shifted focus, appearing to focus instead on Trump’s broader business practices.

Prosecutors are now looking specifically at whether Allen Weisselberg, chief of finance for The Trump Organization, can be pressured to cooperate with the renewed investigation. New York Times.

Weisselberg is said to have been aware of the hush money payment and has already pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges in a criminal case involving The Trump Organization that is currently being heard by the Manhattan Supreme Court.

Weisselberg, who began working directly for Donald Trump in 1986 and worked with the organization as early as 1973, has already admitted to accepting $1.7 million in perks “off the books.”

They include items such as free rental of an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, luxury cars, and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

The payments were made by the Trump Organization, all as part of a scheme to evade income taxes.

Weisselberg has agreed to testify as a witness for the prosecution in exchange for a five-month prison sentence.

The prosecution is now considering whether to file new charges against Weisselberg in the hopes of restoring his cooperation, the Times reports.

Weisselberg recently entered a plea deal on unrelated tax fraud allegations and has not yet turned against former President Trump

The charges would be unrelated to the silent payments made to Daniels and would instead relate to insurance fraud and likely extend the jail term he has served.

Trump has denied all allegations and said he never had an affair with Daniels. That says Michael van der Veen, a lawyer for The Trump Organization.

“I really don’t believe they’re going to go back and conduct these investigations, and if there’s any truth to it, it would show a lack of judgment. The millions of taxpayers’ money they have spent on countless investigations, it is a great waste of time and money.’

Under Vance, prosecutors were working on a broader case against Trump, looking at whether he improperly inflated the value of his hotels, golf clubs and various other assets by billions of dollars to get better loan terms.

The insurance fraud allegations may go back to this aspect of the case and accuse Weisselberg of lying to an insurance company by using the inflated numbers after he said the properties had been appraised by an independent appraiser when in fact they had not.

The values ​​all appeared on financial statements that the company provided to lenders. This, too, was the focus of a long-running civil investigation by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

It all adds to the general wave of legal and political activity surrounding Trump, who announced last week that he will run for president again in 2024, has reinstated his Twitter profile and is still under investigation by special counsel over the insurgency of 6 January.

Earlier this year, when Bragg took over as Manhattan District Attorney, he seemed unwilling to sue Trump for his business practices that seemed uncomfortable with the district attorney’s ability to show that Trump intends was to break the law which would be necessary for the case to succeed.

The agency stated how the investigation into The Trump Organization was still ongoing despite the departure of two prosecutors who led the investigation.

Bragg’s office has not publicly commented on this fresh, new investigation.