A Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to convict former US President Donald Trump of “tacit payments” to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Who is she? What are the roots of the problem?
Donald Trump has faced criminal investigations over the years on multiple fronts, from alleged interference in the presidential election to alleged financial crimes and the latest test of his amassing of government secrets.
In the end, however, what prompted the grand jury to vote against him on Thursday was not election interference, fake accounting, unsecured federal documents, or even his supporters launching an attack on the Capitol in January. Vote for him and tell them to “fight like hell” because of the porn star and director known to fans as Stormy Daniels.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford, said she was raised by a neglectful mother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Horses were her main interest and hobby, but she supported herself financially by working in strip clubs starting in high school.
She eventually began acting and filming pornographic films under an assumed name.
The self-described “little girl who came back to Baton Rouge trying to survive” later met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California, where she was hired to greet competitors between campaigns.
She claimed that Trump invited her to dinner through a bodyguard, that they later had sex in his hotel room despite his marriage to future first lady Melania Trump, and that they stayed in touch for a while because he offered her a role in a reality TV show. show. TV show “Student”.
However, after Trump successfully ran for president in 2016, his relationship with Daniels changed dramatically.
Daniels was negotiating a deal to appear on television during the presidential campaign and discuss her alleged sexual encounter with Trump when she received what prosecutors said was $130,000 to buy her silence and that Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen made the payment.
While Trump denied having sex with Daniels and argued that the payment had nothing to do with winning the election, prosecutors convinced a grand jury to indict Cohen that his method of paying Cohen $35,000 in monthly payments was illegal following an investigation. aimed at determining whether he violated state campaign finance laws or falsified business documents.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal payments-related charges, and in addition to Daniels, Cohen said he arranged the payment to another woman at Trump’s behest.
Daniels recently met with Manhattan prosecutors and answered their questions about the amount paid by the former president. Her attorney, Clark Brewster, tweeted on March 15, “Stormi answered questions and agreed to present herself as a witness or for further investigation if necessary.”
Although news of the payout broke years ago, the prospects of Trump getting into legal hot water remained unclear. Daniels initially hired Michael Avenatti as an attorney and quickly cemented himself as Trump’s favorite and implacable enemy in the media, who declared himself a candidate in presidents of 2024.
Avenatti relentlessly insisted to the media that Trump’s alleged affair could force him to step down, but what ultimately forced Trump out of office was his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.
This eventually strained Avenatti and Daniels’ relationship, and the latter was convicted of federal crimes, including stealing a $300,000 advance for her book, as Avenatti faces 14 years behind bars after he was convicted of probation. stealing as well as defrauding his legitimate clients.
The legal implications of this push surfaced after former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance launched a criminal investigation into Trump.
Mark Pomeranz, who led the investigation but resigned in early 2022 over alleged disagreements over a case with new Manhattan Attorney General Elvin Bragg’s replacement, said in the book that he viewed the award as a potential money laundering offense.
Pomeranz wrote, “If Clifford got the money by threatening to tell the world that she slept with Donald Trump … it would look like blackmail to me.”
He added: “And if it was extortion, the money she received for her silence could be considered the proceeds of crime, so the measure taken to cover up Trump’s identity as the source of the funds was money laundering.”
Source: The Guardian