A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Donald J. Trump for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The precise charges are not yet known, but the case against him has kicked off a historic moment in American politics.
The investigative reporter Ben Protess discusses the development — which will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark Mr. Trump as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges — and what happens next.
Guest: Ben Protess, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Mr. Trump becomes the first former president to face criminal charges.
- Why was he indicted? These are the key events that led to this moment.
- This is what will happen when Mr. Trump is arrested.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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today all right, we're gonna breakin with this fact is over here we have just gotten word former president donald trump has been indicted for the first time in U S, history of former president has been indicted on criminal charges. Is this, of course, is unprecedented? The former
president accused of paying one hundred thirty thousand dollars in hush money to stormy Daniels in the weeks before the two thousand and sixteen presidential election again, my colleague been protests on the case against donald trump and what happens next.
I just hung up with the former presidents and I asked ass. He planned and turn himself in it. He said you take care, John and any hung up on me. It's friday march, thirty first, then
late it is, after nine p m, spoke very long day for you. I know you're tired, thank you for making time for us. My pleasure, I want to begin
and then by just observing the enormity of what has just happened, because for the past six years we ve lived through an endless cycle,
investigations into the trump investigations into alleged campaign collusion with russia investigations
tax evasion january six, the mishandling of classified documents, all of those could have theoretically led to criminal charges, but so far haven't this time in this investigation it has, and it feels huge
It is huge I mean, I think everybody uses the word unprecedented with this president
There have been so many unprecedented things, but in order to
in fifty years of this country, we ve never had a present sitting are or former who's been indicted,
The fact that we now have that is remarkable. It is unexpected in many ways, despite all the investigations you mentioned
he's always manage to escape, and now it's sort of burst out bubble
and now that he's indicted what is going to happen in the next few hours the next few days. So we expect him to surrender toothache
is in manhattan early next week. Basely. What that means is that, like anything,
isn't it he's gonna be escorted into the bowels of the new york say courthouse.
More manhattan and he's going to be fingerprinted, he's gonna, be photographed and he's gonna have to wait there until
What's more he's arraigned in court her? Well, let's, let's just spend a little bit of time with the indictment itself in the simplest terms, what exactly has trump been charged with here? So the story I broke a few hours ago with my colleagues and
willie rash bomb and john brown, which basically says that the grand jury is indicted, MR tramp, but the indictment
he's gonna remain under seal until he is arranged in court. So we don't get to know the specifics, sir. I wouldn't get to know the charges, but what we do know if my reporting is that there are more than two dozen charters while
miss a huge number charges yeah, and we also know that the manhattan district attorney alvin brag has built a case that
please centers on the accusation that mister trump falsified business records. These are business records from his company, and he did this a few years ago, during the two thousand and sixteen presidential campaign over a payment to a porn star
everyday us right, a story we all know very well. In fact, a store, we know probably a lot better than we wish
we did but just remind us of the very basic elements of-
That story, stormy, Daniels, intra so flash back to two thousand and six was now and stormy. Me
for me they have sex and they keep in touch over the ensuing months fast forward to the two dozen sixteen
presidential campaign about a decade later right trump and his people,
are suddenly afraid. That's for me to tell all and that her story is gonna, be here
really damaging, not just his personal life.
He was married at the time of the encounter with miss Daniels, but also to his campaign, which has already reeling from other accusations ripe. So
basically Michael Cohen, who was mister transfix at the time, comes up with a hundred thirty thousand dollars of his own money to buy her silence. He pays
a hundred thirty thousand dollars in hush money too.
basically ensure that she's not can tell her story
and she does indeed keep quiet about. It trump of course wins. The election
and everything seems like it's dead and buried, except that in two thousand and eighteen federal prosecutors in the southern dish. Manhattan figure this out
The wall journal published story, exposing the pay off to mister,
and the federal prosecutor.
The fbi suddenly are now investigating Mr Cohen and their upending, his life and in the
so that the drill down on these one hundred, thirty thousand dollar payment, miss Daniels and what they find out is that, despite
was essentially in illegal campaign donation to the trunk campaign.
The reason for that is that, when you're buying her silence you're helping the campaign right, you are keeping out a damaging piece of information from voters. Attention right before the election
So that is an unrecorded and very excessive campaign donation and Mr Cohen plead guilty,
And in this very dramatic moment, stands up in court while he's pleading guilty and points the finger at the president and says I did this because I was directed to do it by mister trump hm and what remind us becomes of that finger pointing by cohen,
the president of the united states, so it's ultimately revealed that trump reimbursed cohen for the money
and Cohen, goes on a publicity tore telling anyone who would listen, including congress and the prosecutors, that this was all orchestrated by trump and the trump knew that it was.
I covered up in internal documents at the at the company, but legally speaking, there's not much. The prosecutors can do because there's a longstanding justice department policy. That says, you can't indict a sitting president right so essentially from the public view.
That's, where this hits a debt at right. I remember that really well kind of ends as a salacious curiosity involving the president that doesn't
seem to be going anywhere, so walker sue
how and why, this case of all cases,
this manhattan district attorney of all prosecutors ends up
having this case that seemed very dead, because tromp was present then, and how we
to this indictment, the first and only criminal indictment of donald trump, ok, so the feds closed the book on their case and just down the street is
This disparities office. They opened their own investigation into the hush money. Originally,
the D. A sigh vance who
initially open the investigation in the course of that he subpoenaed trumps tax returns. Then
Looking into prouder array of trumps business practices, they looked into
whether he lied on his financial statements, and that was the case that everybody's sorta thought they were going to bring not the hush money case. But the new da alvin bragg he's sworn in early, two thousand and twenty two and he inherits
this case, that was going to be focused on down from business practices and whether he basically lied about his finances for years and years. He looks at that.
and he says, yeah front. Maybe he lied and and falsified his financial records, but
I don't have it yet. We can't quite prove it and Braggs sort of decides pump the brakes well, the only problem was when he decided to pump the brakes
He got a tremendous amount of low back and
everybody was wanting to know, including in deep blue liberal manhattan. Why did you
who Alvin bragged dear we just elected, not want to indict donald trump.
And, in the course of the last few months the zombie case comes back here. This hush money case comes back from it at once, again and sure enough over the course
several months. They start examining new potential new theories and how to revive the case, and
impelling grandeur in january and that's the same grand jury that just indicted him.
And then what made brag and made the lawyers in his office think that this zombie
it was worth pursuing what evidence did they have
that made them want to try to bring these charges may clearly filled,
they have a deep body of evidence and a lot of that hinges on Michael collection,
so Cohen has met with the district attorney's office twenty times, while he has testified before the grand jury twice for hours and hours.
And his story under oath. Is that trump orchestrated this and was aware of all the legal aspects of the hush twenty deal and how does the
instead they have accumulated, bring them.
two
I know we don't know the charges but to the degree that you,
based on the reporting think you understand the charges
Help us understand how what Michael Cohen has been telling the district attorney might create these charges.
It all comes down to how Michael gold coin was reimbursed for the money he paid. Stormy Daniels so
the money was paid by common, but he was paid back by trump and trump, while president sign checks to cohen pay, paying back
all that money and internally in the front organization. They have these records. That falsely say that the money had to do with
legal expenses and that it had to do with a retainer agreement that Cohen had with them. The problem was, of course, there was no retain argument. It was totally bogus. There are no legal expenses, at least not in twenty seventeen when he was repaid. This all had to do with hush money. That cohen had paid stormy daniels, and so if the whole thing was a work of fiction and if the whole thing was according to cohen fraudulent, then that's what the
District attorney is gonna build his case, rout, ok to the alleged crime here. What is behind this indictment? We think is the fraudulent claim of what this money
was for its in actuality, paying off Daniels, but reply
says he just paying his lawyers fees correct, and so the case could be built not just on coins.
Ass, the money, but on the czechs themselves, the trump signed
on the documents that show that the trial
immunization improperly, falsely recorded for these payments as legal expenses, which is just not true, and so often the case is very likely to come down to the falsification of those businesses.
Which in the state of new york is a crime, and it is a felony if you're, using those false business records to commit or conceal a second crime. In this case, probably an election law violation explained, so they might be able to prove a crime of financial fraud from trump lying about what this money was for, allegedly, what might be the second.
I'm that would make this all a felony sure. So if the first crime is lying about what the money was four and these false business records, the second crime very well could be that he was using those false business records to cover up a campaign, finance crime, and in this case that would be
that that cohen paid money to stormy Daniels, to keep her quiet about a potential affair and alleged affair, and that that was essentially huge contribution to trumps campaign and the problem
is that contribution was not recorded anywhere and it was way and excessive. What you're allowed to donate to a campaign?
and in new york state there,
Our campaign viands laws just like there are federally and if it ran off
those laws. That could be the second crime that the trembling
nation in that trunk were essentially covering up. So this
second crime involved or which could be the one that makes that financial crime a felony,
sounds familiar, and that is because it is the crime that
Michael Cohen, already pledge guilty to exactly so then important question: how strong a case
is this. Based on your reporting, I mean I wouldn't call slam dunk by put yourself in the show,
whose of a journey in Manhattan who
evaluating a payment to a porn star that was covered up and lied about potentially affected the outcome of the twain.
Seen election dimension manhattan where people don't. I thought I was a yes, and I think that the prosecution
feels pretty strongly that it has a provable case
does not mean, however, that it does not have its challenges will do way back.
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You said that the district attorney's office thinks it has a reasonably strong case, but that there are challenges that it faces in bringing it so
What are those challenges? Yes, the first part of the case is not so hard. It's the bread and butter of days office, they're, bringing
the accusation that trump and his company essentially falsify business records. Nothing strange about that to make that case a felony as we discussed, you have to have that second charge and that's a little bit trickier. What do you mean? Why? So, if we're right and the second crime is a campaign, finance violation then what's tricky here is that you have new york, state prosecutors, building a case in part
and a violation of new york state election law, basically that this was an illegal campaign donation to the trunk campaign, but it was not a state campaign right. It was a presidential campaign
federal campaigns you're having this unusual, potentially unprecedented, mixing of new york state election law and a federal campaign.
Right. It's not as clean as most cases might be, where its state law alleged crime. This is a little bit funk here.
saying bluebird funk here and as far as we can tell, this has never been tested because remember in the Michael Cohen case, that was entirely a federal cases were federal charges in dealing with a thorough campaign. Here, we're talking about state chart is dealing with the federal campaign bright and listen when you're bringing criminal charges against
The former president I'd states whose now running once again it is challenging to bring a case that has never before been tested through the courts.
That doesn't mean that they won't when it does mean that there is not
a lot of evidence suggesting that he will be convicted. It just means as a challenge,
right. What should we make of the fact that this grand jury brought? This indictment? I mean: does that tell us anything about the strength of the case or
Is that a misreading of how important and clear
grand jury indictment actually is, while the other
is that a grand jury, one day ham sandwich and down from as many things he is not a ham sandwich, but this is still
lower bar a lower threshold? Basically,
the majority of the grand jurors to vote in favor of indicting him, whereas obviously need unanimous jury to convict him and at trial you're going to have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, and here it's a lower standard. So you should not infer just from his indictment that he is going to be convicted, but I do think what it does show is that they were able to
some. These jurors that this case should be brought, and certainly they built a case that suggests that the president
actually committed these crimes. Then I think that
question on a lot of people's minds as they absorb this indictment, and everything you have just said is: why did the mandate decide to bring this case? It's an old case involves this intimate
tawdry personal story and from what you're saying it's built on a pretty untested legal theory, and they could fail so why this one
well in terms of whether or not to bring the case at all. I think that if the da were asked this question, he would say that the rule of law applies to anyone. It doesn't matter if you're, the former president, you know or someone off the street, it's that the law needs to be upheld and if they have the facts and the evidence to prove their case, that they should proceed right. But, of course, the very nature of this case span is what invites republicans to say that it's a witch hunt right because it involves
fair because its old, because it comes from a democratic district attorney who already experienced blow back for not bringing a different set of charges.
Has to know that all of this is setting him up to seem too many republicans like a partisan who's out to get from well the republic
You're gonna say that this is a witch hunt, no matter what the cases and, let's be honest, brag. The days case may not be the last case that we see against him.
We may see future indictment of him unrelated to this indifferent jurisdictions, but
you're really matters. What people in the jury box thank and they're the ones who ultimately decide his fate right? Let's turn to the next phase.
all of us because, as you already hinted at the next few days and x, you weeks are going to be very strange. But the real drama, of course, is going to be this trial and assuming that trump doesn't plead guilty and has no reason to think he will. What would the timetable for that trial? Be? We have this potential extraordinary timetable if we know one thing about down trumps legal strategy, its delay, delay, delay and so
I think that this could be likely delayed well into the twenty twenty four. We could be looking at a trial nine months, twelve months away and, of course, that would raise this extraordinary prospect of having a trial unfolding against the backdrop of a presidential campaign, a campaign in which the defence
It very well could be either the leading contender or even the nominee of his party and if trump is found guilty in a trial in the middle of a campaign, what kind of a sentence could he be looking at, potentially if a jury finds him guilty, it'll be entirely up?
the judge to decide what to do the judge would not need to impose prison sense, but he could face up to four years in prison, so it is possible that we could have a convicted former president headed for some prison sentence running for president in the middle of twenty four correct. But to be clear, you do not need to have a clean
criminal record to be able to hold the office of the presidency. In other words, trump could be convicted and still be reelected correct under the constitution. That's the deal
It's like unprecedented on top of unprecedented and top from president. Everything about this case feels totally historic.
that's because it is then. Thank you very much repression. Thank you.
in a statement with on thursday night trump called the indictment quote political power,
it's a and election interference at the highest level in history,
the manhattan district attorney, who brought the case against him a disgrace and described himself as a completely innocent person, will be right back.
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