Trump was charged with falsifying business records in the first degree.
Invoices for legal services
Guilty on 11 of 11 charges
Checks paid for legal services
Guilty on 11 of 11 charges
Ledger entries for legal expenses
Guilty on 12 of 12 charges
No bail, sentencing on July 11th, 4 days before the Republican convention.
Defense has until 6/13 to file motions, prosecution has until 6/27 to respond.
Trump is responding predictably. Attacking the judge and the whole process.
If you're trying to keep track of where we're at in the Trump prosecutions:
Updated 05/30/2024
New York 34 state felonies Stormy Daniels Payoff
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest
Trial
Conviction <- You Are HereGuilty, all 34 counts.
Sentencing - July 11, 2024
Washington, D.C. 4 federal felonies January 6th Election Interference
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - The trial, originally scheduled for March 4th, has been placed on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling on Presidential Immunity. They are due to hear those arguments on April 25th.
Conviction
Sentencing
Florida 40 federal felonies Top Secret Documents charges
Investigation
Indictment
Original indictment was for 37 felonies.
3 new felonies were added on July 27, 2023.
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - Postponed Indefinitely
Conviction
Sentencing
Other grand juries, such as for the documents at Bedminster, or the Arizona fake electors, have not been announced.
The E. Jean Carroll trial for sexual assault and defamation where Trump was found liable and ordered to pay $5 million before immediately defaming her again resulting in a demand for $10 million is not listed as it's a civil case and not a crimimal one. He was found liable in that case for $83.3 million.
There had been multiple cases in multiple states to remove Trump from the ballot, citing ineligibility under the 14th amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled on March 4th that states do not have the ability to determine eligibility in Federal elections.
It was discussed during the Hope Hicks testimony and others. After the Access Hollywood tape came out, his poll numbers took a nosedive. He was afraid that a story about cheating on his wife with a porn star would doom the campaign so he arranged to pay hush money to her and talked about on stiffing her on the rest of the payments after the election.
He was specifically illegally conspiring to keep it a secret from voters, that's why it was a felony instead of a misdemeanor falsification of business records.
If the story hadn't been about to come out in late October 2016 and the Access Hollywood tape hadn't just come out, there's a decent chance he wouldn't have paid her off.
As in most things in life, it's all about timing and that was a big part of the prosecutions case for establishing motive.
It wasn't the prostitution, it was that he commit fraud, he used election funds to pay her and then falsified documents saying he didn't. It was fraud, not prostitution
Yes it's illegal. There were talks about decrimilization, but I believe that was only for the prostitute, not the soliciter. And it seems it hasn't gone through.
This isn't the reason. He committed fraud while paying a porn star to be quit. He did not commit a crime with the payment itself necessarily, rather in how he did it (and with the side effect of defrauding the public during an election).