(New York) Donald Trump on Monday becomes the first ex-president in American history to appear before the criminal justice system, with the opening of a trial in New York which makes his duel against Joe Biden during the November election.
The Republican billionaire, who arrived in Manhattan court shortly after 9 a.m. (9 a.m. Eastern), is on trial in a case involving payments intended to buy the silence of former porn star Stormy Daniels, a few days before her death. the 2016 election which made him the 45the President of the United States.
A little more than three years after leaving the White House in chaos, he faces, in theory, a prison sentence. This would not prevent him from being a candidate in the presidential election on November 5, where he dreams of a revenge against Joe Biden, but would place the campaign in a completely new situation.
If he were found not guilty, it would on the contrary be a major victory for the Republican candidate.
“The stakes are very high, because Trump and his lawyers have succeeded so far in slowing down (other) trials” on charges of illegal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and his handling of classified documents, underlines for AFP Carl Tobias, professor of law at the University of Richmond.
And the Stormy Daniels case, described as fragile by experts, “could be the only one judged before the elections,” he adds.
Until the last days, lawyers vainly multiplied appeals to delay the deadline. Saturday evening, at a meeting in Pennsylvania (north-east), Donald Trump once again portrayed himself as a victim of legal and political persecution.
“Our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never, ever let them take yours,” he told his supporters.
He assured that he would testify at the trial.
Long questionnaire for jurors
The Manhattan court is placed under very high security. Pro- and anti-Trump protests are expected, as are media cameras around the world. The hearings will not be televised.
First step Monday, the selection of the twelve jurors who will be responsible for unanimously declaring Donald Trump “guilty” or “not guilty”, a process which could take several days.
At least a hundred Manhattan residents will be gathered in the courtroom, where they will have to answer a long questionnaire on their political affiliations, and their sympathies or not for Donald Trump.
The billionaire is indicted for 34 falsifications of accounting documents from his company, the Trump Organization, which allegedly aimed to hide, under the cover of “legal fees”, payments made in the very final stretch of the 2016 presidential election to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels.
For $130,000, the latter had agreed to keep quiet about a sexual relationship with the Republican billionaire ten years earlier, when he was already married to Melania Trump. Donald Trump has always denied this relationship and his defense intends to demonstrate that the payments were in the private sphere.
But the prosecution, led by the prosecutor elected under the Democratic label Alvin Bragg, wants to demonstrate that there were indeed fraudulent maneuvers to hide information from voters a few days before the presidential election, narrowly won by the Republican against Hillary. Clinton.
One of the challenges of the trial will be to determine what Donald Trump knew about these payments when they took place.
His former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who paid the money to Stormy Daniels – at the request of his boss, he claims – and has already been convicted in federal court for this affair, will be one of the witnesses keys to the accusation.
The defense intends to pound this witness, who has become the sworn enemy of Donald Trump, and who was also convicted of lying before the American Congress.