Who are the protagonists in the historic trial of Donald Trump in New York?

Donald Trump, the accused – At 77 years old, the former American president, who dreams of returning to the White House, must answer to 34 charges of falsification of financial documents. In 90% of cases, it is a simple infraction, which most often leads to a fine. But, here, the offense has been elevated to the status of felony (“crime”) because Donald Trump is accused of having disguised the accounts of his company to cover a “plot” of electoral interference. The defendant assures that it was a private transaction to protect his wife. Trump says he wants to testify, but his lawyers are unlikely to let him face the risk of cross-examination. If found guilty, he faces up to four years in prison. According to experts, for a defendant with no prior record, a sentence of six months to one year in prison is, however, more likely. Such a scenario, if Donald Trump won the election without being able to escape incarceration imposed by the New York State justice system, would plunge the United States into institutional chaos.

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Michael Cohen, the former “fixer” – The one who was Donald Trump’s personal lawyer for a dozen years has long repeated that he was ready to “take a bullet for the president”. But, when Michael Cohen was personally worried by the justice system, he turned around and started singing like a canary. He assured that he had bought the silence of Stormy Daniels by paying him $130,000 ten days before the 2016 presidential election, “at the request” of Donald Trump, whom he compared to a mafia boss. Once elected, the American president reimbursed his lawyer via a series of checks, hidden, according to the prosecution, in “legal costs”. Cohen, who pleaded guilty to eight charges – including violating campaign finance law, evading taxes on his personal affairs and lying to Congress – was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018. For the prosecutors are a star witness: the insider who exposed everything. But he also has a major credibility problem, with an established ability to lie when it suits him.

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Alvin Bragg, Manhattan District Attorney – Technically, he doesn’t intervene in the trial. But the prosecutor of the local Manhattan public prosecutor’s office is playing big: elected in January 2022 under the Democratic label, it was he who made the decision to resurrect the case. His predecessor, Cyrus Vance, stepped aside to leave the hand to the federal justice system which had decided not to indict Donald Trump in this affair – apparently believing that Michael Cohen was too problematic a witness to guarantee a victory.

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Karen McDougal, the ex-playmate – This ex-model, who notably posed for Playboy magazine, also claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006-2007. She did not receive money directly from Michael Cohen, but he used an intermediary, the tabloid The National Enquirer, which bought the exclusive rights to McDougal’s testimony for $150,000 and never released it. published. What we call in the jargon a catch and kill (“catch and kill”). She is one of 41 witnesses who could be called to the stand.

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Matthew Colangelo, the expert prosecutor on the case – This is Alvin Bragg’s secret weapon. Matthew Colangelo knows the financial workings of the Trump empire like no other: this former Justice Department lawyer oversaw the prosecutions that led to the dissolution of the Trump Foundation in 2018. He also investigated the accounts of the Trump Organization . In the opening, he carefully placed all the dominoes in front of the jury: the first meeting between Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and David Pecker to nip any embarrassing affair in the bud, the silence of Stormy Daniels bought by Cohen, the reimbursements by disguised checks in legal fees by Donald Trump. It remains to be seen whether he will succeed in connecting everything to bring down the former president and convince the jury, to whom he assured: “It’s electoral fraud, pure and simple. »

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Judge Merchan, the picky magistrate – It is the jury who will decide whether Donald Trump is guilty, but it is Judge Merchan who will decide on a possible sentence. Less flamboyant than Judge Engoron, who fined Trump $454 million in civil court last February, Juan Merchan was born in Bogota, Colombia, but raised in New York. Picky and very concerned about punctuality, he chairs the debates and must also enforce the gag order that he imposed on Donald Trump. The latter does not have the right to attack witnesses, jurors and court staff in front of the cameras or on social networks. Under penalty of exposing yourself to a fine, or even incarceration for “contempt”.

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David Pecker, the former king of the tabloids – He was the one who oversaw the catch and kill of Karen McDougal’s testimony. The former boss of the publisher AMI (American Media Inc), owner of the National Enquirer, is the prosecution’s first witness, and it is no coincidence. He had “a great relationship” with the man he calls “Donald” and whom he saw “once a month” after the launch of his presidential campaign. As in August 2015, at Trump Tower, during a meeting where the Republican candidate and Michael Cohen were present. The three men agreed to a deal, Pecker testified, for his magazines to “publish positive articles about Donald Trump and negative articles about his opponents.” A crucial meeting that prosecutors present as the foundation of the “plot”, close to the notion of criminal association in France. READ: Trump trial: big money, illegitimate child and gutter press

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Stormy Daniels, the ex-porn star – July 2006. Donald Trump has been married for just a year to Melania, who has just given birth to their son Barron. Stormy Daniels, at the time a porn star, met the then presenter of the reality TV show The Apprentice in a casino in Lake Tahoe, California. In 2011, she told a magazine that she had had an affair with Donald Trump five years earlier. But the affair is partly hushed up, already by Michael Cohen. Stephanie Clifford, her real name, returned to the charge in the middle of the presidential campaign in the fall of 2016, when Donald Trump was weakened by an old video from the show Access Hollywood in which he boasted of being able to “catch (women) by the c**t”. Daniels ultimately signed an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, in exchange for a wire transfer of $130,000. On the stand, she could reveal embarrassing details for the former president and revisit the intimidation she claims to have suffered.

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