Former United States President Donald Trump has announced his planned arrest for Tuesday March 21 and has urged his supporters to “demonstrate” in his defense. Trump didn’t explain why he should be arrested, but pointed the finger at the “corrupt Manhattan law firm.” New York prosecutors are investigating the former president’s alleged role in a black payments scheme linked to the Trump Organization.
Payment to porn star Stormy Daniels
The story puts the spotlight back on the name of Stormy Daniels, the porn star who received a $130,000 payment in October 2016, just before the election that crowned Trump. The character was used to convince the woman – born Stephanie A. Gregory Clifford – to keep quiet about an alleged flirtation she had with The Donald in 2006. Trump has always publicly denied any relationship with the porn star.
The payment was then made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney and former president’s “fixer”: it was up to him to intervene to resolve thorny situations like the Stormy Daniels case. The money was returned to Cohen, investigators suspect, by altering the accounts of the Trump Organization: falsifying such data is a crime in New York State. In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The attorney pleaded guilty to tax evasion and violations of the presidential campaign’s financial rules.
The allegations against Trump
The New York Times recently wrote that investigators had offered Trump the opportunity to appear before a grand jury: the passage, according to the newspaper, would indicate an imminent indictment. The indictment hypothesis against Trump could take different forms: The fraudulent behavior could be seen as a function of violating or intending to violate campaign finance rules. The Trump Organization accounted for the reimbursements to Cohen as attorneys’ fees in its internal records. The former president has always denied knowing about the payment. Trump risks becoming the first former president to be impeached.