Hush money could prove falsified business records and indict Trump

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New York grand jury indicted former US President Donald Trump, according to his lawyers on Thursday, as part of the Manhattan district attorney office's investigation into hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress whose real name is Stephanie Gregory Clifford.

According to the New York Times, the investigative invitation of Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could mean the first-ever indictment of a former US President with a criminal charge. 

Trump's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said there has been no legal basis for setting this precedent and that he did not think the prosecutors had decided "one way or another."

Tacopina proclaimed "It’s just another example of them weaponizing the justice system against him," adding that "it's sort of unfair."

On Truth Social, Trump wrote, in reference to the case, that it was a "Witch-Hunt trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party."

Michael Cohen, the former attorney in charge of the Trump case, had pleaded guilty in 2018 on federal charges concerning offering Clifford $130,000 as hush money after she claimed she had an affair with Trump, who in turn denies.

Trump accused Bragg on Thursday of employing an "old and rebuked case which has been rejected by every prosecutor’s office that has looked."

It is important to note that it's not prohibited to pay someone hush money in the US. 

However, authorities are considering whether to prosecute Trump for falsifying the Trump Organization's financial records in relation to how they recorded the reimbursement of the payment that Michael Cohen, his then-fixer claimed to have provided to Daniels. 

In New York, falsifying company documents is a misdemeanor.

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