Could Trump Face Charges over Stormy Daniels Payment? It was the sort of scandal that would have been the biggest of any president other than Donald Trump: The notion that the sitting president had had an extramarital affair with a famous porn star and had possibly paid hush money to keep her quiet shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
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But this happened. In early 2018, around five years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s then-attorney, Michael Cohen, had arranged for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 campaign, in order to prevent her from coming forward about the affair she had with Trump in 2006.
Cohen denied the allegation in the original Journal story but later acknowledged that it was true. Cohen later broke with Donald Trump, and pled guilty to different charges later that year, later spending time in prison. Daniels herself later wrote a book and gave televised interviews telling her side of the story, as did Cohen.
In April of 2021, Daniels appeared on Cohen’s podcast, Mea Culpa. As their previous interaction had involved intermediaries, the podcast represented the first time Cohen and Daniels had ever met.
Donald Trump Has A Problem?
That affair, while certainly providing a great deal of fodder for late-night comedians back then, it never led to any legal consequences for Trump, but now there are indications that it could.
According to CNN, Cohen met with prosecutors this week from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. CNN described this as “the clearest sign that prosecutors are zeroing in on the Trump Organization’s involvement in hush-money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.”
Cohen had met with prosecutors before, including 13 times over the course of their probe into the Trump Organization.
But the meeting this week, CNN said, was the first in more than a year.
The Stormy Daniels payment is now the focus of the Manhattan DA’s investigation, CNN said.
However, they’re also looking into “potential insurance fraud,” in relation to the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into past financial statements by the Trump Organization.
Earlier this month, The Trump Organization was convicted on 17 counts of running a tax fraud scheme and fined $1.6 million.
Allen Weisselberg, its former CFO, was sentenced to five months in jail last week.
When Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg entered office in early 202, he reportedly lacked confidence in a potential criminal case against the former president, and two prosecutors who had been brought in to work on that case resigned. But by the end of the year, that appeared to change, and the office hired a former Justice Department official named Matthew Colangelo to work on the possible criminal case.
“Matthew Colangelo brings a wealth of economic justice experience combined with complex white-collar investigations, and he has the sound judgment and integrity needed to pursue justice against powerful people and institutions when they abuse their power,” Bragg said at the time of Colangelo’s hiring.
Drama and More Drama for Trump?
The Manhattan DA probe is just one of many possible sources of criminal jeopardy for the former president.
A special counsel, Jack Smith, is looking into both the Mar-a-Lago documents case and any crimes Trump may have committed in relation to the January 6 riot; the January 6 Committee made four criminal referrals of Trump personally. They were for conspiracy to defraud the federal government; obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting or assisting those in an insurrection.
In addition, there is a grand jury in Georgia looking into Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. And last October, New York Attorney General Letitia James launched a lawsuit accusing Donald Trump and his three oldest children of fraud. The James suit is not a criminal prosecution.
However, it did include criminal referrals to both the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
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Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
