Donald Trump is the first former American president to appear before the criminal justice system. He is on trial for a case of payments intended to buy the silence of former porn star Stormy Daniels.
The billionaire is indicted for 34 falsifications of accounting documents from his company, the Trump Organization. He allegedly aimed to hide, under the cover of "legal fees", payments made in the very final stretch of the 2016 presidential election. For $130,000, the latter had agreed to keep quiet about a sexual relationship with the Republican billionaire ten years earlier, when he was already married to Melania Trump. Donald Trump has always denied this relationship and his defense intends to demonstrate that the payments were in the private sphere. If he were found not guilty, it would on the contrary be a major victory for the Republican candidate. The Manhattan court is placed under very high security. Pro- and anti-Trump protests are expected, as are media cameras around the world. The hearings will not be televised. First step Monday, the selection of the twelve jurors who will be responsible for unanimously declaring Donald Trump “guilty” or “not guilty”, could take several days.