Trump personally engaged in 'election fraud,' 'criminal' coverup, prosecutor tells jurors

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office will prove that former President Donald Trump personally authorized hush-money payments to two women because he believed that allegations of his affairs with them could cause him to lose the 2016 presidential election, a prosecutor said in opening arguments Monday.

That effort "was election fraud, pure and simple," said prosecutor Matthew Colangelo in beginning his opening statement for the prosecution.

Colangelo told jurors that Trump orchestrated the criminal scheme to interfere with the election and covered it up by lying in his New York business records "over and over and over again." Trump narrowly defeated his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton in that close race despite losing the popular vote by 2.9 million votes.

Colangelo then went from the general to the specific, telling jurors that Trump personally approved $130,000 in payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to prevent her from going public just before the election with claims about their affair.

"This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up," Colangelo said.

Payments made 'at Donald Trump's direction and for his benefit'

Trump has denied the claims of affairs by Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal and has pleaded not guilty. He largely looked forward as Colangelo delivered the opening statement.

Colangelo described to jurors a meeting between Trump, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and a tabloid publisher, David Pecker, in which the three agreed to a three-pronged conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

Pecker would be the campaign's "eyes and ears," reporting potentially harmful information to Cohen, who would work to keep it quiet, Colangelo said. He described this to jurors as the "core" of the conspiracy. Pecker also would publish flattering stories about Trump, and use his publications to attack Trump's political opponents.

In Daniels' case, Cohen sent the $130,000 to Daniels' lawyer to kill the story before the 2016 election, Colangelo said. Cohen, he added, "made that payment at Donald Trump's direction and for his benefit."

Colangelo, who joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in December 2022 after serving as a senior Justice Department official, also described a similar effort to silence McDougal. Like Daniels, wanted to go public with claims that she had an affair with Trump.

A 'catch-and-kill' arrangement to silence one of Trump's two accusers

That effort was done through what's known as a "catch-and-kill" arrangement, Colangelo told jurors, describing how Cohen worked with Pecker, then-head of the National Enquirer’s parent company, to have the tabloid firm pay McDougal $150,000 to keep her quiet. While McDougal believed the tabloid would run her story, the core reason for the payment was to keep the story from hurting Trump's presidential campaign, Colangelo said.

Colangelo also told jurors about a recorded conversation in which Cohen and Trump discussed McDougal's story. He said the jurors will hear Trump in his own voice on the tape saying, "So what do we gotta pay for this, 150?"

Cohen recorded the conversation, Colangelo said, to show Pecker that Trump planned to pay him back for buying McDougal's story.

Acknowledging the former Trump lawyer's history as a convicted liar and felon, Colangelo said Cohen's testimony in the trial will be backed up by a paper trail that includes phone logs and business documents. Also, he told jurors, it will be "backed up by Donald Trump's own words on tape, in social media posts, in his own books, and in video of his own speeches," Colangelo added.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump engaged in 'criminal' election fraud, prosecutor tells jurors