Donald Trump arrives in New York court for start of soon-to-be-shredded money trial

Former US President Donald Trump arrived in a New York court on Monday for the hearing of the case related to the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. He is accused of falsifying business records to hide payments.

This will be the first criminal trial of a former US President.

Trump, the Republican candidate running against Democratic President Joe Biden in the November presidential election, has pleaded not guilty.

A report from the Reuters news agency said the case could be the only one of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial before the November 5 election. The agency cited legal experts as saying the current case is the least consequential of the Trump prosecutions.

A guilty verdict in this case would not prevent him from holding office, but it could harm his candidacy.

What is the matter?

Last year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Donald Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a US$130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. The payment to Daniels was made by Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for her silence about a sexual encounter she had with Trump a decade earlier during the 2016 campaign.

Daniels said she had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006, a year after his marriage to first lady Melania.