Donald Trump’s Business Records to Be Used Against Him in Trial

Donald Trump’s trial in New York will be a “paper case” relying on business records between the former president and his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, according to a legal expert.

Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and legal analyst who is a frequent critic of the former president, made the remarks while previewing Trump’s historic falsifying business records trial, which will begin on Monday with jury selection.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to so-called “hush money” he arranged for Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair she had with Trump a secret ahead of the 2016 election. The money was listed in Trump’s company records as “legal fees,” which prosecutors suggest was part of an unlawful attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential race.

Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, admits reimbursing the $130,000 hush money to Cohen but denies having an affair with Daniels.

Writing in her Civil Discourse blog, Vance noted that prosecutors would need to try and convince the jury that the money Trump paid to Cohen, later listed as “legal fees” to prevent news of the alleged affair from becoming public, was not to protect his marriage, but to help his 2016 election hopes.

Vance also said that they would need to rely heavily on Cohen, arguably their star witness in the case, despite being a “convicted felon and self-confessed liar” when he takes the stand in the New York courtroom to testify against Trump.

“How do we know the hush money payments were about the campaign, not Trump’s desire to protect his wife, who was at home with their young child while he was with Stormy Daniels? There are a lot of reasons, but one of the chief ones comes from the prosecution’s statement of facts,” Vance wrote.

“Trump directed Cohen to delay making payment to Stormy Daniels for as long as possible. He told Cohen that ‘if they could delay the payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public.’ So much for Melania Trump’s feelings.”

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s legal team via email for comment.

With regards to Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal tax crimes, lying to Congress, and campaign finance violations in relation to hush money payments paid to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, Vance added that “presenting a witness like this isn’t easy, but the [prosecution’s] best strategy is to remind jurors that they didn’t pick the witness—the defendant did.”

“Here, Cohen has told a more or less consistent version of his story since first agreeing to cooperate. Prosecutors surely wish he had less of a public presence, but he is clearly not a witness within their control,” Vance wrote.

“Ultimately, they will have to corroborate his testimony with other witnesses or with documents. But the point remains, why did Donald Trump use Michael Cohen to conceal this scheme if everything was on the up-and-up? Ultimately, this is a paper case, and much of the proof will be in the form of business records and other physical evidence uncovered during the execution of the search warrants on Cohen,” Vance added.

“This case is an early chapter in the story of Trump’s willingness to cheat in elections and break the law in order to win. In that sense, it’s the most fitting place for prosecution to start.”

Vance also suggested that Trump understands the seriousness of the charges against him as he made several attempts to delay or throw out the case through the courts, all of which were rejected.

“If it were such a minor matter, you’d expect him to be eager to clear his name instead of letting the case drag on for over a year,” Vance wrote.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday morning, Trump accused the proceedings in New York of being a “witch hunt” that aims to stop him from winning the 2024 election.

“As virtually every legal scholar has powerfully stated, the Biden Manhattan Witch Hunt Case is, among other things, BARRED by the Statute of Limitations. This ‘trial’ should be ended by the highly conflicted presiding Judge,” Trump wrote.

“The Radical Left Democrats are already cheating on the 2024 Presidential Election by bringing, or helping to bring, all of these bogus lawsuits against me, thereby forcing me to sit in courthouses, and spend money that could be used for campaigning, instead of being out in the field knocking Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the History of the United States. Election Interference!”