Phear before the start of the hearing in Manhattan court – where Trump faces an accusation that he used money from his 2016 presidential campaign to silence actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an extramarital affair – the Republican candidate repeated that this legal process It is a “political persecution” organized by the Government of Democratic President Joe Biden, who will be his opponent in the presidential elections.
Just over three years after leaving the White House, Trump faces the possibility of having to serve a prison sentence, which, if it happens, will not prevent him from being a candidate in the presidential elections on November 5th.
“The risks are very high, because Trump and his lawyers have so far managed to postpone other trials” — including two in which he is accused of illegal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and one in which he is accused of illegally storing confidential documents – explained Carl Tobias, professor of Law at the University of Richmond.
Of the four court cases in which Trump is involved, however, the one taking place in New York is the only one that is expected to go to trial before the elections, according to analysts.
The trial, in downtown Manhattan, is taking place under high security, with pro and anti-Trump protests expected, as well as the presence of journalists from around the world, despite the hearings not being televised.
Today, the selection of the 12 jurors who will be responsible for declaring, unanimously, whether Donald Trump will be found guilty or innocent is taking place – a process that could take several days.
At least a hundred Manhattan residents will gather in the courtroom, where they will have to answer a long questionnaire about their political affiliations, and their sympathies, or not, for Donald Trump.
Trump is indicted for 34 falsifications of accounting documents from his company, the Trump Organization, which allegedly intended to hide, under the pretext of lawyer fees, payments made in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential elections to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence.
For 130 thousand dollars (just over 100 thousand euros), the pornographic film actress agreed to keep silent about a sexual relationship with the Republican billionaire 10 years earlier, when he was already married to Melania Trump.
Donald Trump has always denied this relationship and his defense aims to demonstrate that the payments were made within his private sphere.
However, the prosecution – led by prosecutor Alvin Bragg, elected as a Democrat – wants to demonstrate that there were in fact fraudulent maneuvers to hide information from voters a few days before the presidential election, which was won by Trump, by a narrow margin, against the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
One of the challenges of the trial will be determining what Donald Trump knew about these payments when they occurred.
His former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who paid the money to Stormy Daniels — in his version, at the request of his boss — and has already been convicted in federal court for this case, will be one of the prosecution’s key witnesses.
The defense intends to tarnish the image of this witness, who became an enemy of Donald Trump and who was also convicted of lying before the US Congress.
Read Also: Bribery to Stormy Daniels? Trump has already arrived at court in New York
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Source: https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/2541175/perseguicao-trump-diz-que-o-seu-julgamento-e-ataque-contra-a-america
