By Aaron Miller-
Prosecutors working under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr are reconsidering opening up criminal charges against former president Donald Trump as a result of $130,000 payment his company made to cover up his affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, is seeking to jump-start a long-dead investigation into the payments, which federal prosecutors used as evidence to prosecute Mr Trump’s ex-attorney, Michael Cohen, for campaign finance law violations.
The news comes a day after Donald Trump’s account was reinstated after a poll in which users narrowly backed the move.
“The people have spoken,” tweeted Mr Musk, saying that 51.8% of more than 15 million Twitter users voted for the ban to be lifted.
Mr Cohen paid Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, the $130,000 to keep her from speaking out about her affair with Mr Trump during his 2016 campaign for the presidency.
Ms Daniels later sued Trump for defamation after he accused of lying about a threat she was subjected to by an unidentified individual. She eventually lost the suit
The former president admitted to making the payments, which Mr Trump’s eponymous real estate and licensing company repaid to him as legal expenses.
The news revealing plans to revive legal issues in relation to Stormy Daniels was first reported in the Newyork Times is a reminder of the mounting legal woes facing Donald Trump.
Weisselberg, who allegedly had knowledge of the hush-money payment, has pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges in a criminal case involving the Trump Org that is playing out in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The longtime Trump confidant has copped to accepting $1.7 million in perks “off the books” — including free rent on an Upper West Side apartment, luxury cars and tuition payments for his grandchildren — from the Trump Org as part of a scheme to skirt income taxes.
Weisselberg agreed to testify as a prosecution witness in exchange for a reduced five-month prison sentence.
Trump has been under sustained pressure over a series of legal fights of late, most notably the issue surrounding the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal investigation of Trump for retaining government records, including some marked as classified, after leaving office in January 2021.
The FBI seized 11,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in a court-approved Aug. 8 search, including about 100 marked as classified. Some were designated top secret, the highest level of classified information.
Trump has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt.
A so-called special master, Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie is reviewing the seized documents to determine whether any are protected by attorney-client privilege or by executive privilege, a legal doctrine under which a president can keep certain documents or information secret.
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL SUIT
Then in October, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed last month that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2021.
Ms James accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to satisfy loan terms and get better insurance coverage.
She is seeking to permanently bar Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years. James is also seeking to have the defendants disgorge around $250 million that she described as obtained through fraud.
After James announced the lawsuit, Trump in a social media post called the action “Another Witch Hunt.” A lawyer for Trump called the lawsuit’s claims “meritless.”
And a special grand jury was selected in May to examine evidence in a Georgia prosecutor’s inquiry into Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.
Central to the investigation is a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. During that call, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss.
Trump is accused of violating at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.