Headed into this afternoon, we had a reasonably good idea about how the process would unfold. Donald Trump would surrender to authorities in Manhattan. The former president would be fingerprinted and processed. He would then appear in court, plead not guilty, and prepare to head back to Mar-a-Lago for some kind of political event tonight.
What we didn’t know was, well, everything else. How many charges would the Republican face? What would the indictment say? Would there be felony counts?
The answers have come into sharper focus. My MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin summarized what transpired in a New York courtroom this afternoon:
Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the indictment unveiled in Manhattan on Tuesday. The former president’s plea was expected but it nonetheless kicks off an historic criminal case involving hush money payments to two women, NBC News reported.
After the lengthy court hearing wrapped up, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office released both a copy of the 16-page felony indictment and a 13-page statement of facts, summarizing what the prosecutors intend to show during the trial.
“From August 2015 to December 2017, [the former president] orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” prosecutors alleged.
“In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.”
Much of the story is familiar, though there are new details that are likely to be highly relevant as the process moves forward.
The statement of facts, for example, alleges that Trump directed Michael Cohen to delay making a payment to Stormy Daniels “as long as possible,” because “if they could delay the payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public.”
That strategy ended up not working, and Trump ultimately “agreed to the payoff and directed [Cohen] to proceed.” But details like this suggest that the hush money payment was, in fact, related to the election, since the future president didn’t care in the fall of 2016 what the porn star said after the election. It was also of interest to see that while much of the focus was, and is, on Daniels, she’s not the only one to have received hush money. Prosecutors also highlighted a $30,000 payoff to a doorman who was trying to sell information about a child that Trump allegedly fathered out of wedlock, as well as $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also allegedly had an extramarital affair with Trump. I also read the materials with a point NBC News’ Laura Jarrett emphasized last week: “Cohen is a key witness, but prosecutors can’t hinge their entire case on his testimony. In New York, no one can be convicted on the basis of testimony from an accomplice to a crime without corroborating evidence. What’s the corroborating evidence in this case?” With this in mind, the materials from Bragg’s office today repeatedly referenced the role of David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, and his direct and extensive efforts in Trump’s alleged schemes. NYU Law’s Ryan Goodman noted this afternoon that Pecker “is going to be a star witness.” The scrutiny of the newly unsealed documents will, of course, continue, and we’ll apparently have quite a bit of time to study the allegations: Trump’s next court date set for December 4, which is eight months from today.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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