A New York judge has rejected Donald Trump's request to dismiss criminal charges stemming from hush-money payments to ex-porn actress Stormy Daniels.

The former president's trial for allegedly falsifying business records to make the payments will proceed as scheduled on 25 March.

Ms Daniels claims she and Mr Trump had sex, and that she accepted $130,000 (£104,000) from his former lawyer before the 2016 election in exchange for her silence about the encounter.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, was later jailed on multiple charges.

Since the allegations surfaced in 2018, the former president has denied any sexual involvement with Ms Daniels.

Stormy Daniels goes public with affair claim

Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said in media interviews that she met Mr Trump at a charity golf tournament in July 2006.

She alleged the pair had sex once in his hotel room at Lake Tahoe, a resort area between California and Nevada. A lawyer for Mr Trump "vehemently" denied this at the time.

"He didn't seem worried about it. He was kind of arrogant," she said in response to an interviewer's question asking if Mr Trump had told her to keep quiet about their alleged night together.

Mr Trump's wife at the time, Melania Trump, was not at the tournament and had just given birth.

Threats and payments to stay silent

In 2016, days before the US presidential election, Ms Daniels said Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 in "hush money" to keep her quiet about the affair.

She said she took it because she was concerned for the safety of her family. Ms Daniels said she was legally and physically threatened to stay silent.

In 2011, shortly after she agreed to give an interview to In Touch magazine about the alleged affair, she said an unknown man had approached her and her infant daughter in a Las Vegas car park and told her to "leave Trump alone".

"That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom," she recalled him saying, in a 2018 interview with CBS' 60 Minutes.

Before the episode aired, a shell company linked to Mr Cohen threatened Ms Daniels with a $20m lawsuit, arguing she had broken their non-disclosure deal (NDA), or "hush agreement".

Ms Daniels told the CBS show she was risking a million-dollar fine by speaking on national television, but "it was very important to me to be able to defend myself".

Her interview with In Touch would not be published in full until 2018, three months before the 60 Minutes episode.

Is it illegal to pay hush money?

It is not illegal to pay someone compensation in exchange for an NDA.

But prosecutors have focused on how Mr Cohen's reimbursement was recorded in Mr Trump's accounts. He is accused of falsifying his business records by categorising the payment as for legal fees.

The wire transfer came mere days before the presidential election. District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges that Mr Trump tried "to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public".

In August 2018, Mr Cohen was imprisoned after pleading guilty to tax evasion and breaking campaign finance rules, in part related to his payment to Ms Daniels and another alleged Trump lover.

Although he initially said that Mr Trump had nothing to do with the payments, Mr Cohen later testified under oath that Mr Trump had directed him to make the $130,000 hush payment.

Why was Trump indicted?

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan criminal court to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.

He was indicted in relation to payments made to Ms Daniels. He is also under investigation in relation to pay-offs to a former Playboy model to keep quiet about her alleged sexual encounters with him.

On his social media network, Truth Social, Mr Trump wrote in all capital letters that "the radical left Democrats have criminalized the justice system".

Source:
courtesy of BBC NEWS

by Mattea Bubalo & Robin Levinson King | BBC News

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