Donald Trump’s hopes rise over Stormy Daniels legal case

Donald Trump could be on the verge of his first big break as he braces himself for a second impeachment trial.

A scandal involving the alleged payment of so-called “hush money” to the porn actress Stormy Daniels is unlikely to lead to legal charges against former President Donald Trump.

According to reports in the US, people familiar with the case say Mr Trump will not be forced to face charges - despite losing the shield of presidency.

Stormy Daniels. Picture: AFP

Associated Press reports the Stormy Daniels affair led to Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen being jailed. Cohen testified before a US House committee that he paid $A180,000 to Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election to silence her about a sexual liaison she allegedly had with Trump.

The former president was also identified by prosecutors as playing a role in Cohen’s campaign finance crimes during his successful 2016 run for office.

But several people involved in the case say the US attorney’s office in Manhattan has made no such move, and is unlikely to do so going forward.

It could be a much needed piece of good news for the former president as he braces himself for a second impeachment trial, with charges claiming he incited the 6 January Capitol riots. He denies the allegations.

Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

An lawyer for one key witness described the investigation as “dead”, adding that prosecutors have even returned certain evidence they collected - a likely indication no one else will be charged.

The lawyer spoke on the condition of anonymity because prosecutors have not discussed the case publicly.

One current and one former law enforcement official told the AP that factors beyond presidential immunity prevented Trump from being charged for his role in buying the silence of McDougal and Daniels.

Both women said they had extramarital affairs with Trump in the mid 2000s and claimed they were offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet ahead of the presidential election.

Trump’s departure from office has not altered that equation, said the officials, who weren’t authorised to discuss internal deliberations and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Cohen, who has cast himself as a potential star witness against his former boss, told AP that he hasn’t heard from the US attorney’s office in Manhattan since late 2018, when he was sentenced to three years in prison for arranging the payments.

Donald Trump … “a private matter”. Picture: AFP

Mr Trump has said the payments to Daniels were a private matter and did not amount to campaign finance violations.

Federal prosecutors infamously referred to Trump as “Individual-1” in charging Cohen with skirting campaign contribution rules by arranging six-figure payments to Daniels and a former Playboy model, to keep them quiet about years-old affairs that Trump consistently denied.

Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer to Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

The investigation turned up evidence that Trump himself had been aware of the payments, despite his initial public claims he knew nothing about them.

Prosecutors said “Individual-1” directed Cohen to make the payments, which they said should have been subject to campaign finance laws because they were made for the purpose of helping Trump win the election.

Trump’s lawyers maintained during his presidency that he was shielded from prosecution while in office, raising questions about his legal exposure following his tenure - and even the prospect he would pre-emptively pardon himself.

But prosecutors harboured other concerns, particularly over the reliability of Cohen as a witness, the former enforcement official said, adding it was “not likely for new witnesses to emerge”.

Cohen was also charged with lying to Congress about a Trump project in Russia.

Manhattan prosecutors asserted in court papers that Cohen had been “forthright and credible” but added that he “repeatedly declined to provide full information about the scope of any additional criminal conduct in which he may have engaged or had knowledge”.

Prosecutors also believed it was unclear whether Trump could be convicted of a campaign finance crime, even if a jury believed Cohen’s allegations that he directed the hush-money payments.

BIDEN’S SWIPE AT ‘ERRATIC’ TRUMP

US President Joe Biden said Friday that his predecessor Donald Trump, who is awaiting a Senate impeachment trial on charges of inciting an attack on the US Capitol, should not receive classified intelligence briefings, as is customary for former presidents.

“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?” Biden said in an interview with the CBS Evening News.

The new Democratic leader cited Trump’s “erratic behaviour unrelated to the insurrection” of January 6, when he is accused of encouraging his supporters to smash their way into Congress to prevent politicians from certifying Biden’s election victory.

Trump insisted that the election had been stolen from him, despite overwhelming evidence that it had not, and despite losing dozens of legal challenges to Biden’s win.

While in the White House, Trump repeatedly triggered concern over his use or dismissal of intelligence.

In May 2017, he reportedly shared classified information in a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador that US intelligence believed put an ally’s assets at risk.

Trump also publicly questioned US intelligence’s findings that Russia intervened in the 2016 election and carried out a massive hacking operation late in his term.

US President Joe Biden makes his way to board Air Force One. Picture: AFP

The former president has already been impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting the Capitol insurrection that left five people dead, and faces a trial in the Senate next week.

He had been impeached for a first time last year on charges of trying to force Ukraine to interfere in the November 3 elections in his favour.

Former presidents are traditionally entitled to intelligence briefings, but many Trump critics have voiced fears that he is a loose cannon who may let slip information vital to national security.

Mr Trump has refused to testify in his looming trial after being called by prosecutors to give evidence in person, branding the process “unconstitutional”.

Mr Trump’s lawyers ridiculed the request in a letter by lead House prosecutor Jamie Raskin to answer questions over the 6 January attack on the US Capitol as a “public relations stunt.” “Your letter only confirms what is known to everyone: you cannot prove your allegations,” attorneys Bruce Castor and David Schoen said in their reply.

A senior adviser to Mr Trump, Jason Miller, said flatly: “The president will not testify in an unconstitutional proceeding”.

It came days before Mr Trump’s charge of “incitement to insurrection” is taken to trial in the US Senate on Tuesday.

Former US president Donald Trump has refused to testify at his impeachment trial, which he considers unconstitutional. Picture: AFP

In an unprecedented second impeachment, Mr Trump is accused of fomenting the attack by his supporters on the US legislature one month ago, forcing a halt to proceedings to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the November presidential election.

Democratic House prosecutors say the Republican leader was “singularly responsible” for the Capitol attack, which left five dead.

In a White House rally just before the attack, Mr Trump encouraged supporters to reject the election results and to “fight like hell.”

“His immediate refusal to testify speaks volumes and plainly establishes an adverse inference supporting his guilt,” Mr Raskin said in a statement.

While Democrats will make such statements the focus of their case, Mr Trump’s lawyers will hone in on the question of constitutionality.

Conviction requires support of two-thirds of the 100 senators, who serve as judges and jury in the trial.

But last week 45 of 50 Republican senators made clear in a vote they think putting an ex-president on trial is unconstitutional.

Mr Raskin had asked Mr Trump, who baselessly alleged that Mr Biden won by fraud, to testify sometime next week, before or during the trial.

Donald Trump is currently living full-time at his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. Picture: AFP

He said Mr Trump, who now lives in his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, had little excuse to avoid testifying, and could no longer claim he was too busy overseeing the country, as was the White House position when he was still president.

TRUMP ALLY DEMOTED OVER VIEWS

It comes as the Republican congresswoman whose toxic views and conspiracy theories was stripped of her committee appointments in the House of Representatives on Thursday night, local time, in a vote without precedent in the modern era.

Eleven of 210 Republicans broke ranks and voted with all 219 Democrats to demote Marjorie Taylor Greene over social media posts that included endorsements of messages advocating the assassination of senior Democrats.

Alarming actions before she ran for office included posting video of herself harassing a teen school shooting survivor and casting doubt on the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“No member ought to be permitted to engage in the kind of behaviour that Representative Greene has and face zero consequences,” number two House Democrat Steny Hoyer told the chamber.

“This vote can be a first step in correcting the error of those who so far have chosen to do nothing.”

Ms Greene, 46, had taken to the House floor to plead her case before the vote. “These were words of the past, and these things … do not represent my values,” she said.

“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them,” she added. “And that is absolutely what I regret.”

In a striking moment on the House floor, Ms Greene acknowledged that “school shootings are absolutely real” and that “9/11 absolutely happened”.

But she did not directly apologise in her 10-minute speech.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who promoted right wing conspiracy theories, has been kicked out of the House of Representatives in a historic move. Picture: AFP

Republicans were forced to go on record over Ms Greene’s conduct, which includes her trafficking in anti-Semitic, racist and Islamophobic tropes.

Before running for Congress, Ms Greene “liked” Facebook posts that advocated the execution of Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In 2018 she asserted that California wildfires were ignited by a space laser controlled by a Jewish family, and she supported QAnon conspiracy theories that a “deep state” cabal operated against Donald Trump when he was president.

“When I started finding misinformation, lies, things that were not true in these QAnon posts, I stopped believing it,” Ms Greene told the House.

However, casting herself as a victim of “cancel culture” and wearing a “Free Speech” mask, she also said that the media were just as guilty as QAnon for promoting lies.

She vilified Democrats for trying to “crucify me in the public square for words that I said, and I regret, a few years ago”.

Nancy Pelosi, leader of the House, criticised the Republican leadership for its “acceptance of extreme conspiracy theorists” after Ms Greene escaped punishment from her own party.

Marjorie Taylor Greene believed in numerous conspiracy theories including that 9/11 and school shootings were hoaxes. Picture: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for MoveOn

The Congresswoman, who was anointed by Mr Trump last year as “a future Republican star”, has become a lightning rod for the party’s efforts to navigate its way through the aftermath of its presidential election defeat and subsequent loss of the Senate.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said on Monday that she was “not living in reality” and denounced her views as “cancer for the Republican party and our country”.

Originally published as Donald Trump’s hopes rise over Stormy Daniels legal case