Former president convicted on all 34 charges

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office last year charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $US130,000 payment that Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford.

The payment was made in the waning days of the 2016 campaign in exchange for her silence about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump a decade earlier, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors have alleged that was part of a broader “catch-and-kill” scheme to suppress negative news stories about Trump before the 2016 election in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Cohen has also said he and Trump discussed a $US150,000 payment made by American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid, to former Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep quiet about an affair she says she had with Trump. The tabloid never published a story.

Trump denies both sexual relationships and has called the case a politically motivated “witch-hunt”. Trump in 2018 admitted to reimbursing Cohen for his payment to Daniels, though his lawyers have since argued that his payments to Cohen in 2017 were retainer payments for Cohen’s work as his personal lawyer that year, not reimbursements for the Daniels payment.

According to prosecutors, Trump disguised his 2017 reimbursement cheques to Cohen for the Daniels payment as retainer fees for legal services in records maintained by his New York-based family real estate company, the Trump Organisation.

Each of the 34 counts stem from a cheque, ledger entry or invoice from Trump’s payments to Cohen. It is against New York state law to make a false entry in a company’s records. While falsification of business records on its own is a misdemeanour, it is considered a felony punishable by up to four years in prison if it is done to conceal or further other crimes.

Reuters