The criminal hearing is historic.
Indicted in a case of secret payments before the 2016 election, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Tuesday April 4 to falsifying accounting documents in a New York court.
Left free without judicial control, the 76-year-old former president will try everything to avoid the test of a trial in 2024, only a few months before the presidential election in which he is a candidate.
The former president is facing 34 counts and accused of "
orchestrating
" a series of payments to cover up three embarrassing affairs with the 2016 election, according to the indictment.
Hidden child, bribe, the "
catch and kill
" technique...
Le Figaro
takes stock of these.
Read alsoAfter his indictment in New York, Donald Trump counterattacks at Mar-a-Lago
A porn star, a Playboy model, a doorman
A porn star
.
The story of Stormy Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford, was already known to everyone.
The 44-year-old pornographic actress has claimed for several years that she had a relationship with Donald Trump in 2006 and 2007. Just before the presidential campaign in 2016, Stormy Daniels received $130,000 to remain silent.
In 2018, Michael Cohen, personal adviser to Donald Trump, said he had donated this sum from his own pocket.
Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford in New York, United States, February 23, 2018. EDUARDO MUNOZ / REUTERS
A Playboy model
.
Stormy Daniels was not the first.
Karen McDougal, Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1998, said she met Donald Trump at the Playboy mansion in June 2006 and began an affair with him which ended in 2007. In August 2016, he was paid $150,000 with American Media publisher of the weekly
National Enquirer
, run by David Pecker, to buy the rights to his story, never to be published.
A practice known as "
catch and kill
".
American Media admitted in a 2018 settlement to avoid federal prosecution that it made the payment to Karen McDougal.
Michael Cohen, who admitted to being behind the $130,000 payment for Stormy Daniels, said he helped organize Karen McDougal's deal, on Donald Trump's orders.
A Trump World Tower doorman
, Dino Sajudin, who claimed to have evidence of a hidden child, received $30,000 in 2015 from a media group close to Donald Trump to reserve the exclusive for him. story, which was never published.
In 2018, he told CNN, "
When I worked at Trump World Tower, I was instructed not to criticize President Trump's former housekeeper."
“Because of an affair she had with President Trump, from whom a child was born
,” he added.
34 charges
Paying to buy someone's silence is not illegal in itself.
Donald Trump, who reimbursed Michael Cohen with several checks spread over the year 2017, however recorded these expenses as “
legal fees
” in the accounts of his company, the Trump Organization, whose headquarters is in New York.
He therefore faces 34 charges for “
falsification of accounting documents
”, as well as fraudulent entries in this part of the case.
In New York State, accounting falsifications are generally considered simple offenses, but they become misdemeanors, punishable by four years in prison, if they were committed to "cover up" another
offense
.
"
And that's exactly the heart of the case
," said prosecutor Alvin Bragg at a press conference, accusing Donald Trump of having "
made 34 false statements
" to hide the illegality of the means deployed to promote his candidacy in 2016.
The prosecutor cited possible violations of federal and New York state campaign finance law.
“
The idea is that the payments and the false declarations are part of a vast plan intended to undermine the democratic process
”, by preventing voters from having all the information necessary for their choice, explains to AFP Bennett Gershman, a former New York prosecutor and law professor at Pace University.