Trump Indictment

There is a criminal investigation being run in New York on former U.S. president Donald Trump. There are more than 30 counts relating to things like business fraud. The New York grand jury has been investigating Trump for months with the suspicion that he was connected to a “hush money payment scheme”. The weird thing about this case is, during Trump’s 2016 presidential run for office, he made a $130,000 payment to an adult film star named Stormy Daniels. Trump’s attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, made the payment. Allegedly, this payment was being made to Daniels to silence her from going public about an “affair” between Trump and Daniels. In response to being indicted, Trump claimed “Political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history”. 

Hush money payments alone are technically not illegal. But, because Cohen was the person forwarding the money to Daniels, Trump could possibly be charged for falsifying business records of the Trump Organization. Falsifying business records is in fact a crime in New York. As of Wednesday, April 12th, Trump’s lawyers are asking to delay the sexual assault trial, due to this being a “historic indictment”. Jean Carrol, former magazine columnist, is also suing Trump for defamation, and accusing him of raping her in a dressing room in the mid 90s. Trump denies this claim, stating that “she’s not my type”. Trump claims she is only accusing him of this to boost the sales of her book. The trial is now scheduled to begin on the 25th of April. It will be interesting to see how Trump’s legal team handles this issue.