Opening arguments kick off Donald Trump's historic first criminal trial. Here's what to expect.

By Lukas I. Alpert

Trump faces felony charges for allegedly trying to cover up hush-money payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels

Opening statements in the hush-money coverup trial against Donald Trump begin Monday, marking the start of the first-ever criminal prosecution brought against a former U.S. president. The case against him revolves around alleged efforts to cover up a hush-money payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, but also involves a novel reading of the law by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that elevates the charges against Trump to felonies.

The former president faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records for a series of checks he signed to reimburse his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 he paid to Daniels to keep her from going public with allegations that she and Trump had had an affair.

The charges Bragg has brought against Trump have been elevated to felonies, which means prosecutors will need to argue that falsifying business records was committed in the execution of another criminal act. Legal experts say they believe Bragg will argue that the "catch and kill" payments were intended to illegally influence the 2016 election by suppressing potentially damaging information.

The case is expected to take about six weeks in all. Trump is required to attend in person every day the case is being heard in court.

The allegations

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that in August 2015, Trump and Cohen held a meeting in Trump Tower with David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and hatched a plot for the supermarket tabloid to alert the campaign to potentially damaging stories.

Pecker agreed to be Trump's "eyes and ears," and to buy up the rights to any such stories as necessary and then not publish them, in tabloid dark arts practice known as a "catch and kill," prosecutors said.

Over the next year, the Enquirer paid $30,000 and $150,000 to buy the silence of a Trump building doorman and Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal, who were both shopping stories alleging infidelity by Trump, according to court documents.

Then, in the final months before the 2016 election, Daniels emerged with a story alleging she had had sex with the real-estate mogul in a hotel suite in 2006, when they met during a celebrity golf tournament. Trump has denied the affairs.

In this instance, however, it was decided that Cohen would make the $130,000 payment to Daniels himself, tapping into his home-equity line of credit to cover the cost, prosecutors said. That left open the question of how Trump would pay Cohen back.

Those checks

The crux of the case centers around the checks to reimburse Cohen and a series of ledger entries that recorded them.

Prosecutors say Trump agreed to pay Cohen $35,000 a month for a year to cover the $130,000 he paid Daniels, $50,000 for an unrelated service, an additional $180,000 to cover any tax liabilities so that Cohen could claim the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment as income, plus a $50,000 bonus.

To cover the money up, prosecutors say Trump and his chief finance officer listed the payments as "legal services rendered," in the Trump Organization's ledger books.

That sleight of hand amounted to a crime of falsifying business records, Bragg said, hitting Trump with 34 counts - one for each of the checks as well as for each misleading ledger entry.

Trump has argued that the charges being brought by Bragg, a Democrat, are politically motivated, as Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, seeks a return to the White House later this year.

The jury

The trial against Trump officially started last Monday when jury selection began. Over the course of a week, the judge and lawyers for both sides questioned hundreds of potential jurors before settling on 12 people to sit on the panel, plus six alternates.

The jurors' names are secret, but the panel includes seven men and five women, all of whom live in Manhattan. Included on the jury are an investment banker, an engineer, a speech therapist, a retiree and several lawyers.

Given Trump's high profile, the judge only asked jurors if they had opinions about the former president that were so strong as to render them unable to reach a verdict impartially. Dozens had said they could not and were excused.

One juror who had been selected was later excused after she said people she knew had been able to identify her based on information that had been made public and that she felt she couldn't be impartial given the pressure she expected to endure.

Another juror who had initially been selected was also later excused when attorneys for both sides said they had determined that he hadn't been fully truthful with them.

The judge has ordered the media to be more careful in revealing information about the jurors that could identify them.

A long legal road ahead

Star witnesses expected to testify in the case include Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels and David Pecker. Trump's former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg - who earlier this month was sentenced to five months in jail for perjury in a separate case - is also expected to testify. Trump's former spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, has also been reported to be a possible witness. The Manhattan hush-money case is just the first of four criminal prosecutors Trump faces, complicating his campaign schedule as the race for the White House heats up.

Trump faces a federal case alleging he incited an insurrection against the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021, as part of an effort to overturn the results of the election he had lost to Democrat Joe Biden the previous November. The trial is awaiting a Supreme Court decision on Trump's claim to immunity for any action he may have taken while in office.

Trump also faces separate state charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to illegally overturn the 2020 election results. That case has been delayed amid allegations of an improper relationship between the district attorney and the lead prosecutor in the case.

Trump is also awaiting trial in federal court in Florida for allegedly keeping boxes of classified documents after leaving office and refusing to return them to the government when asked. A trial date in this case has yet to be set.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all cases.

-Lukas I. Alpert

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04-22-24 0854ET

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