Trump schemed to corrupt 2016 polls

New York prosecutors yesterday began telling a jury why Donald Trump’s alleged cover-up of a hush money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign broke the law, as the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president got underway.

“This case is about conspiracy of fraud,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the jury. “The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.”

Lawyers for the Republican presidential candidate will also make their opening statement in what may be the only one of Trump’s four criminal prosecutions to go to trial before his November 5 election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

Though Trump called for supporters to protest peacefully at courthouses “all over the Country,” few were on hand to greet him when he arrived at the downtown courthouse. Trump suggested tight security measures were responsible for the sparse turnout, but the streets surrounding the courthouse were open to the public.

“Lower Manhattan surrounding the Courthouse, where I am heading now, is completely CLOSED DOWN. SO UNFAIR!!!” he wrote on social media.

Prosecutors say Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier deceived voters in the waning days of Trump’s 2016 campaign, when he was facing other revelations of sexual misbehaviour.

As the trial opened, Justice Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors would be able to ask Trump, if he testifies, about two other court cases: one that found he fraudulently misstated the value of his real estate assets, and another that found he defamed writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape.

Merchan also said prosecutors would be able to show jurors a transcript of a tape from the ‘Access Hollywood’ TV show in which Trump makes vulgar comments, though jurors will not be allowed to see the tape itself.