The first criminal trial of a former American president opened Monday in New York City. Donald J. Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records. Trump also is considered the likely Republican Party nominee for president in November’s general elections in the United States.
Jury selection is the first step in the trial process. Over the coming days, the defense and the prosecution will consider possible jury candidates. The final group will number 12 jurors and six possible substitutes, or alternates.
Trump is accused of hiding a $130,000 payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels just ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors say the money was provided in exchange for her silence about a reported sexual interaction between them years earlier.
The indictment also alleges that model and actor Karen McDougal had a months-long relationship with Trump while he was married. She says a newspaper publisher paid $150,000 for the rights to her story but did not publish it, reportedly at Trump’s request.
The charges also involve a payment to a Trump Tower employee. The doorman reported to know of a child Trump had fathered outside his marriage.
Trump has denied all of the charges and any involvement in sexual relationships outside his marriage. That includes the charge that he directed his one-time political adviser, Michael Cohen, to make the payment to Daniels. Cohen says he made the payment and Trump paid him back during the first year of his presidency in 2017. The monthly payments to Cohen were recorded in Trump’s business records as legal expenses.
Falsifying a company’s records is a misdemeanor crime. But doing so in connection with other wrongdoing is a more serious felony crime. Trump is accused of falsifying records to keep information from the public that could have affected the 2016 election results.
Each of the charges carries the possibility of a four-year prison term.
The New York case is one of four criminal indictments Trump is facing, 88 charges in all. Trump has denied all of them.
Two of the other indictments accuse Trump of trying to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss. The third says he illegally took hundreds of highly secret national security documents to his Florida home when his presidential term ended, and then refused to return them.
No trial dates have been set in the other cases. Pre-trial hearings and legal arguments have delayed the process. Trump has looked to push the start dates until after the election in November. If he wins office, he could seek to have the federal charges dismissed.
I’m Anna Mateo.
Ken Bredemeier wrote this story for Voice of America. Dan Novak adapted it for VOA Learning English.
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Words in This Story
selection — n. the act of choosing something or someone from a group
indictment — n. an official written statement charging a person with a crime
misdemeanor — n. a crime that is not very serious : a crime that is less serious than a felony
felony — n. a serious crime