Trump’s Hush Money Trial Begins Today. Here Are the Key Players.

Jury selection in Donald Trump’s first criminal trial officially kicks off Monday in New York City! This is the one about the alleged hush money payments—Trump is accused of violating New York’s campaign finance laws by paying off porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her from talking about an affair she claims to have had with the former president. Trump denies the affair, but his former fixer Michael Cohen says Trump instructed him to pay Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 general election. And once Trump was elected president, he paid Cohen back. Trump claimed the reimbursement was in no way connected to his campaign.

Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 felony counts, arguing the payments to Daniels amount to falsifying business records in the first degree.

There’s a whole host of colorful characters involved in this trial, and we’ll be hearing a lot more about them over the next six weeks. In case you have trouble keeping everyone straight, here’s a guide to help you out.

Role: Manhattan district attorney, and the prosecutor who’s bringing the case against Trump

Known for: Bragg is a seasoned attorney and a lifelong New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. He graduated from Harvard University, and shortly after started working on white-collar crimes, eventually moving up as a federal prosecutor under Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bragg continued on to serve as assistant attorney general at the state AG’s office, and that’s where he really became familiar with Trump. Bragg led the team that successfully sued the Trump Foundation and Trump University, while also helping New York state sue the Trump administration over 100 times. In 2020, Bragg launched his first bid for public office and won with 83 percent of the vote, becoming the first Black district attorney of Manhattan. And despite some internal back-and-forth over whether Trump’s hush money case should move forward, Bragg stuck with the case and ended up indicting the former president last year.

Current status: After some heated back-and-forth between Trump’s lawyers and Bragg, the DA managed to minimize delays to the hush money trial and argued it should start on April 15. Bragg is expected to be in the courtroom throughout the trial.

Role: Acting justice of the New York Supreme Court who will be presiding over the trial

Known for: Merchan is a first-generation immigrant, born in Bogotá, Colombia, who immigrated to New York City with his parents at 6 years old. He grew up poor, working odd jobs to make ends meet, and became the first member of his family to graduate from college and eventually law school. By 1994, Merchan was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, where he worked on financial fraud cases, then moved on to work for the state attorney general’s office. In 2009, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to the state’s federal bench, where he presided over a series of complex financial cases, including many related to the former president. In 2022, Merchan heard the Trump Organization criminal tax fraud case, where former CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to grand larceny tax fraud and falsifying business records and Merchan sentenced him to five months in jail. He’s also presiding over former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s indictment for money laundering in an alleged scheme to dupe donors who were told their money would go toward building a wall along the U.S. southern border.

Current status: Merchan is known for being a meticulous judge, “someone who reads every word on every page of every filing and every footnote.” In the lead-up to Trump’s April trial, Merchan denied a motion to dismiss Bragg’s indictment.

Role: Former adult film actress, and a key witness in the trial

Known for: Daniels was a well-known personality in the entertainment industry well before her alleged affair with Trump consumed national headlines and led to the former president’s indictment. Daniels—whose real name is Stephanie Clifford—has won many awards for her performances in adult films and for her directing work. She had a cameo in the 2005 comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and director Judd Apatow described her as “hilarious and really funny and easy to work with.” Daniels was born and raised in Louisiana, and in her 2018 memoir, she wrote that she grew up with an absent father and was repeatedly sexually abused at a young age. She began working as a stripper while still in high school, then moved on to work in the adult film industry. Daniels detailed her alleged 2006 affair with Trump in that memoir, and said she agreed to accept $130,000 in exchange for staying quiet about it. She also shared how she watched in disbelief as Trump campaigned for president in 2016. “It will never happen, I would say,” wrote Daniels. “He doesn’t even want to be president.”

Current status: Daniels has been cooperating with prosecutors and is expected to testify during the hush money trial. (Trump’s attorneys tried and failed to block her from taking the stand.) “I relish the day I get to face him and speak my truth,” said Daniels on ABC’s The View.

Role: Actress, model, and former Playboy model. Also claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump.

Known for: Before McDougal entered the world of adult entertainment, she was a preschool teacher in Michigan. In her free time, McDougal started participating in local swimsuit competitions and was eventually discovered by Playboy. McDougal went on to become a playmate at the men’s magazine and was even named Playmate of the Month in 1997, Playmate of the Year in 1998, and runner-up for Playmate of the Decade for the 1990s. It was during this time that she met Trump, which she detailed in an interview with CNN, and the two allegedly engaged in a 10-month-long affair. (Trump has denied this.) McDougal’s story didn’t come to light until four days before the 2016 presidential election, when the Wall Street Journal reported that the National Enquirer paid McDougal $150,000 with the promise that they would publish her affair allegations. They never did—a classic “catch-and-kill” operation—while the chairman of the Enquirer’s publisher, David Pecker, declared he was “a personal friend” to Trump.

Current status: Bragg’s indictment mentioned McDougal’s deal with the National Enquirer, but he did not make any charges related to that. It’s not clear whether she’ll testify at Trump’s trial.

Role: Former publishing executive and possible witness in the hush money trial

Known for: Pecker was the king of American tabloids, serving for 21 years as CEO of the former American Media Inc., which owned dozens of magazines, including the National Enquirer, Shape, Men’s Fitness, Star, and others. He was born and raised in New York, just like Trump, and the two men developed a close relationship beginning in the mid-1990s, sharing plane rides together while Pecker ran puff pieces about Trump in his magazines—which is where the trouble began. In Bragg’s indictment, he accuses Pecker of suppressing at least three stories that would have been perceived as damaging to Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 election—including McDougal’s affair story. In 2018, as part of a non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of New York, AMI admitted that it made a $150,000 payment “in concert with a candidate’s presidential campaign, and in order to ensure that the woman did not publicize damaging allegations about the candidate.” (Prosecutors ended up charging Michael Cohen.) Trump has denied having an affair with McDougal, and in 2018 said, “I don’t think we made a payment to [AMI]. I was asking the question—I don’t think we made a payment.”

Current status: Pecker testified before a grand jury last year as part of Bragg’s investigation, but it’s not yet clear if he’ll be called to the witness stand again during Trump’s trial.

Role: Former fixer and attorney for Trump who has been cooperating with the prosecution

Known for: This 57-year-old ex-attorney is linked to at least two of Trump’s legal challenges, including Bragg’s hush money case. Trump and Cohen go way back, with the former president hiring him back in 2007 to work for the Trump Organization, after which he quickly became Trump’s personal fixer. In 2016, Cohen followed Trump to the White House, and that’s when things started going south for him. By 2018, FBI agents raided Cohen’s office and found a recorded conversation between him and Trump where they discussed hush money payments to McDougal. A month later, Cohen confessed to prosecutors that Trump directed him to pay off two women who claimed they had affairs with the former president. Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including campaign finance violations, and served 13 months in prison.

Current status: Cohen testified before a grand jury, regularly met with prosecutors in Bragg’s office, and handed over quite a bit of evidence. It’s not yet clear whether he’ll be testifying at Trump’s trial.

Role: Attorney for Trump

Known for: Blanche is a former federal prosecutor and now works as a criminal defense attorney on white-collar crimes. Trump hired Blanche at the last minute, just one day before the former president was arraigned in New York City over Bragg’s hush money indictment. Before working for the former president, Blanche represented Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chief, against criminal charges of mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. Blanche successfully got Manafort’s charges dismissed. “The Trump team is very lucky to get someone like Todd,” said Marcus Asner, a former colleague of Blanche’s at the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, to the Financial Times. Blanche has his work cut out for him; he’s assigned to three of Trump’s criminal cases: the hush money indictment and both federal indictments brought by special counsel Jack Smith—the classified documents case and the federal election interference case.

Current status: Blanche co-authored a motion to have the hush money case paused while Trump’s presidential immunity appeal plays out with the Supreme Court. He’s expected to be in court representing the former president.

Role: Attorney for Trump

Known for: Necheles is a New York–based criminal defense attorney and has her own legal practice—its website touts her ability to get “rabbit-out-of-the-hat results” for her clients. Early in her career, Necheles worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for Kings County. She’s worked on a handful of high-profile cases, including for “Benny Eggs,” the underboss of the Genovese crime family (he was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 15 years in prison), and for former New York Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who was convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a nonprofit health care network. Necheles has been hired by Trump to represent the Trump Organization in a number of cases since 2021, and most recently she defended the company during New York District Attorney Letitia James’ civil fraud case. And in the upcoming hush money trial, she’s expected to play a “lead role.”

Current status: Necheles filed a series of motions to delay and dismiss Bragg’s indictment. She’s expected to be in court alongside Blanche.