As a Grand Jury decides whether Donald Trump should face charges over a payout to an adult film actress, seanwhelanRTE looks at how things might get Stormy for the former US president
Since last Monday, a panel of 23 citizens of New York City have begun hearing from witnesses called by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
But this isn’t the first time prosecutors have come close to charging Mr Trump in relation to the $130,000 payout to Stormy Daniels. Indeed the on-again, off-again nature of the investigation has been at the heart of one of the most bitter and long running feuds in the American legal and political system, with a number of prominent legal figures unloading on each other in public.
When the case came to trial, prosecutors said Cohen’s payout of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels was effectively a donation to the Trump campaign, because by getting her to shut up it improved his electoral fortunes, and thus violated campaign finance laws that banned donations of more than $2,700 in a general election.
But the interesting stuff came six months later, when Bill Barr took over as Attorney General. The DA's office had continued to investigate the campaign finance charges. But Mr Berman claims Mr Barr tried to kill off the investigation, and suggested that Cohen’s conviction be overturned. But the Stormy Daniels question refused to go away. In the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, led at the time by Democrat Cyrus Vance Jr, prosecutors were pouring over the Trump Organization to see if it had broken State laws, and many prosecution theories were advanced. But the Stormy Daniels campaign financing issue kept coming up. It got the name"the zombie-theory" in the DA's office – an idea that refused to die.
Last year, that wider investigation produced a separate tax evasion case against the Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. Wiesselberg is currently in New York's most notorious jail, Rikers Island, as part of a plea bargain in that case. The company was fined $1.5m . Weisselberg testified against the company, but not against Donald Trump.
The new DA was not impressed with the strength of the case and ordered a halt to the Grand Jury process . Mr Pomerantz and the other lead prosecutor quit in protest.
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