A New York City grand jury was convened in a case of hush money payments to Stormy Daniels allegedly approved by Donald Trump in 2016, three sources familiar with the situation confirmed to NBC News.
A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment. Donald Trump’s attorney, Ron Fischetti, declined to comment on Monday night.In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump accused Bragg of being a “radical-left Manhattan DA.” A new grand jury said it was “the continuation of the greatest witch hunt in history.”
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, recently met with prosecutors and may be asked to appear before a grand jury amid a heated investigation. News that a grand jury has been convened over payments made to former porn star Daniels years ago to silence star Daniels over allegations she had a sexual relationship with Trump was first reported.
The Times reported that witnesses began testifying before a grand jury on Monday, suggesting an escalation of what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has alluded to as the “next chapter” of his office’s Trump investigation. There is
A grand jury was previously convened in New York to investigate possible criminal charges against Trump, but to date no one has been charged. A Manhattan grand jury would be the latest legal threat to Trump as he ramps up his presidential campaign.
A special grand jury in Atlanta has investigated whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes in an attempt to reverse Georgia’s 2020 presidential election loss. Last month, his Jan. 6 committee in the House of Representatives voted to refer criminals to the Justice Department for Trump’s role in causing the riots at the U.S. Capitol. The FBI is also investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents.
New York hush-money survey found Daniels was paid $130,000 and former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to remain silent on Trump’s 2016 election victory . Mr Trump has denied having an affair with either woman.
2018 Trump murmured It clarified that the money “did not come from a campaign” and that the transaction was a “private agreement between two parties known as a non-disclosure agreement or NDA.”
“The agreement was used to stop the false blackmail accusations she made about cheating,” Trump said. twitter.
Cohen said he paid Daniels through his company and then received a reimbursement from Trump, who admitted to repaying Cohen $130,000. through the publisher and then squashing her story in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch and kill” to help Trump become president.
The New York Times reported that David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer, was spotted entering the building where the grand jury was meeting on Monday.
A shocking revelation from President Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, could put the president and personal attorney Michael Cohen in the sights of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. said it disclosed the president’s payment to Cohen on Fox News to avoid the information being leaked later.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges that he violated campaign finance laws by arranging payments in 2018. Before he was released on house arrest due to the COVID-19 pandemic and served about a year in prison. Federal prosecutors said Trump was aware of the payments, but they refused to charge him with the crime.
Cohen previously told The Associated Press that he recently met with a Manhattan prosecutor for two and a half hours. ” he claimed.
The Trump Organization was convicted of tax evasion last month and fined $1.6 million as punishment for an unrelated scheme to dodge personal income taxes for top executives for the perks of lavish jobs.
“Now that the trial is over, we’re moving on to the next chapter,” Bragg told the Associated Press in an interview after the tax evasion trial.
In a statement, the Trump Organization suggested that Democrat Bragg was trying to undermine Trump’s fledgling 2024 presidential campaign. Doing so would be “simply reprehensible and convincing,” the company said.
Bragg’s predecessor as district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., also looked into hush-money payments before shifting the focus of the investigation to the Trump Organization’s tax and business practices.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
