According to the most recent actions of New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, prosecutors are poised to decide whether to charge former President Trump in relation to a $130,000 hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, The Hills reported.
This week, the Manhattan district attorney’s office ratcheted up the conflict by appointing a new grand jury to hear the case and by presenting witnesses.
Legal authorities and a former associate of Bragg’s claimed that the Democratic attorney’s activities show prosecutors are getting closer to bringing charges against Trump.
In many posts on Truth Social, Trump has played down the issue, suggesting that Bragg should concentrate on reducing crime in New York.
The probe was seen as a witch hunt by the former president, who also cautioned against statutes of limitations—the time restriction within which prosecutors may file charges.
Both Ronald Fischetti, a Trump lawyer, and Danielle Filson, a Bragg spokesperson, did not respond to calls for comment on this article.
Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 to prevent her from publicly claiming she had an affair with him, which is when the scandal involving Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels started. Trump has refuted the scandal.
Later, Cohen admitted to breaking the law on campaign funding. He said that Trump gave him the order to pay and that Trump paid him back in a series of bonus-inclusive monthly payments. He even allegedly handed one of the alleged checks to senators during a committee hearing in 2019.
According to The Hill, if prosecutors can demonstrate that Trump actively participated in improperly categorizing Cohen’s reimbursements as a legal expenditure with the intent to mislead, Bragg may try to file state charges of falsifying business records against the former president.
When committed as a felony, this offense carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
In order to prosecute the allegation, prosecutors would also need to demonstrate that the fraud involved an intention to conduct another felony.
Legal professionals believe it may require violating state tax or campaign finance rules, but they questioned whether a federal campaign finance violation would be sufficient.
The majority of New York offenses have a five-year statute of limitations, which would provide another challenge for prosecutors. Numerous alleged incidents relate to transactions between 2016 to 2017.
Christian argued that if he had been too late, Bragg would not have proceeded with the grand jury, and he speculated that a legal principle known as tolling—which permits prosecutors to file charges after the deadline in certain circumstances—might be at work.
If the matter proceeds to trial, Cohen’s testimony—a felon with a criminal record—could be crucial to establishing any claim.
In what Cohen called a “reinvigorated” probe, Cohen said on Wednesday that he recently met with Bragg’s office and gave them access to his smartphone.
As happened with a previous grand jury in the inquiry, the grand jury might possibly adjourn without presenting any charges.
In order to investigate whether Trump and his companies improperly altered asset valuations for tax and loan benefits, Cyrus Vance Jr., Bragg’s predecessor and the one who launched the inquiry, called a prior grand jury.
That grand jury disbanded once Bragg took over and did not bring any charges against the prior president.
At that point, it appeared that the probe was waning. Two prominent prosecutors who wanted to accuse Trump resigned, suggesting that Bragg had given up looking for the evidence to support the charges.
Since then, Bragg has achieved convictions for the Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, on counts relating to executive benefits.
According to The Hill, in one of several legal disputes involving the former president, the hush money and the president have recently come back into the spotlight. Trump may become the first former president to be charged with a crime.
Investigations by the federal government into the improper handling of sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago and efforts to thwart the 2020 transfer of power are still ongoing. The New York attorney general is considering a civil case against the former president, while a district attorney in Georgia is looking into Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election.
Be the first to comment