ISLAMABAD: Former United States President Donald Trump will be charged with a crime over allegations that he covered up hush money payments to ex-porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Daniels claims she and Trump had sex and that she accepted $130,000 from his ex-lawyer before the 2016 United States election in exchange for her quietness on the encounter.
Michael Cohen, a lawyer, was later jailed on numerous charges.
The ex-president has denied he had any sexual connection with Daniels since the allegations surfaced in 2018.
Stormy Daniels goes public with affair claim
Daniels, whose original name is Stephanie Clifford, has said in media interviews that she met Trump at a charity golf tournament in 2006.
She alleged the pair had sex in his hotel room at Lake Tahoe, a resort place between California and Nevada. A lawyer for Trump “vehemently” denied this at that time.
“He did not seem worried about it. He was kind of haughty,” she said in response to an interviewer asking if Trump had told her to keep quiet about their alleged night together.
Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, at the time wasn’t at the tournament and had just given birth.
Thank you to everyone for your support and love! I have so many messages coming in that I can't respond…also don't want to spill my champagne 😜 #Teamstormy merch/autograph orders are pouring in, too! Thank you for that as well but allow a few extra days for shipment.
— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 30, 2023
“Donald Trump’s lawyer paid $130,000 in hush money”
In 2016, days before the US presidential election, Daniels said Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 in “hush money” to keep her silent about the affair.
She stated that she took it because she was concerned for her family’s safety.
Daniels said that she was legally and physically threatened to stay quiet.
In 2011, shortly after she agreed to give an interview to In Touch magazine about the alleged and physical affair, she said an unknown person had approached her and her infant daughter in a Las Vegas car park and told her to “leave Trump alone”.
“That’s a pretty little girl. It’d be an embarrassment if something happened to her mother,” she recalled him saying in a 2018 interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.
The interview with In Touch wouldn’t be published in full until 2018.
Before the sixty Minutes episode aired, a shell company linked to Cohen threatened Daniels with a $20m lawsuit, arguing she had broken their non-disclosure deal, or “hush agreement”.
Daniels told the CBS show she was at high risk of a million-dollar fine by speaking on national television, but “it was very significant to me to be able to defend myself”.
Is it illegal to pay hush money?
Paying someone compensation in exchange for a non-disclosure deal isn’t illegal. But since the payment was made the month before the presidential election, Trump’s critics argued the money could amount to a campaign violation.
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to tax-evasion and breaking campaign finance rules, in part related to his payment to Daniels and another alleged Trump lover.
Although he initially said that Trump had nothing to do with the payments, Cohen later testified under oath that Trump had directed him to make the hush payment of 130,000 dollars days before the 2016 United States election.
He said the president reimbursed him for the payment.
Trump has acknowledged reimbursing the payment, which is not illegal, but denied the affair and any wrongdoing regarding campaign laws.
Cohen was jailed on several counts after he pleaded guilty to violating laws during the 2016 United States election.
Earlier this year, New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg set up a grand jury to inquire whether there was enough evidence to pursue a prosecution against the ex-president over the money paid to Daniels.
The grand jury was held behind closed doors and set up by a prosecutor to determine whether sufficient proof existed to pursue charges in the case.
That jury reportedly voted to bring the criminal charges, making Trump the first ex-United States president to face them. It isn’t yet known what charges will be brought.
On his social media, Truth Social, Trump called the investigation a political witch-hunt by a “corrupt, depraved, and weaponised justice system”.
