A grand jury in New York this week did not hear the controversial $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, paid to her by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, during the campaign Trump’s presidential election in 2016. Discussion of this issue is postponed again, now until next week.
Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, claims she had an affair with Trump ten years ago but was allegedly paid to keep quiet about it. Trump denies that is actually the case. Meanwhile, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has dismissed accusations from Republican U.S. lawmakers that Trump’s prosecution is politically motivated, meaning he is working for Democrats ahead of the presidential election in the United States. next year.
Passions surrounding a potential grand jury decision in New York have been running high all week. The former head of the White House Ethics Department in the George W. Bush administration, Richard Painter, in his comment to the media Russian Service, noted that nothing like this had ever happened in the States United before.
“We never had a criminal case against the former president. Richard Nixon probably would have been charged with obstruction of justice had it not been for the pardon he received from President Gerald Ford in 1974. But we don’t “We’ve never faced a situation like this before. The charges in New York are just one of the episodes in which Donald Trump could face criminal liability. The Department of Justice can bring him much more serious charges, for example in connection with inciting sedition and rebellion. Fulton County, Georgia could also be charged with inciting voter fraud. There are other cases pending. So there are quite a lot of potential criminal charges against Donald Trump right now.”
But, despite the scandals and questions to Donald Trump related to possible violations, only a charge of inciting sedition can deprive him of his right to participate in the presidential race, if proven. And that, according to Richard Paynter, is perhaps the most serious of possible accusations against the former president.
“Only a charge of sedition can result in disqualification from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment (to the Constitution). But that’s what happened on January 6 at the Capitol. In New York, the district attorney’s charges relate to paying money to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election in what was clearly an attempt to circumvent federal election law. Donald Trump lied about it. And we believe there may be a justified criminal case here, although of course it is not the most serious of crimes that, in my opinion, Donald Trump has committed,” Painter concluded.
