The first American president to be indicted for a charge of criminal possession of a weapon, or not to speak about sex, or in relation to a child out of wedlock

Mr. Trump has spent nearly a half-century fending off criminal charges. In the late 1970s, he was investigated in New York and that led to how he would deal with prosecutors for the rest of his life.

The former president became the first American president to be indicted on criminal charges for paying a porn star not to speak about sex.

He surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office and appeared before a judge, where he pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal possession of a weapon.

In a remarkable spectacle playing out before a divided nation, Mr. Trump’s 11-vehicle motorcade arrived just before 1:30 at the district attorney’s office, part of the towering Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. Special accommodations were made for the former president while he was in custody, because he was fingerprinted like a felony. He was in custody for a short time.

Mr. Trump was visibly angry as entered the courtroom. He was accompanied by his legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn, and the lawyers handling this case, Todd W. Blanche, Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina. Mr. Trump declined to speak before or after the hearing, and immediately left to fly back to his home in Florida.

Mr. Blanche spoke about the former president who was upset about the charges but was determined to prevail. He’s angry. He’s upset. But I will tell you what. He is motivated. It’s not going to slow him down,” he said.

The New York City Police Department, Secret Service and Manhattan district attorney’s office worked together to put on a show at the courthouse amidst fears of protests and Trump-inspired threats. When the helicopter hovered overhead, the streets near the courthouse were filled with the press corps and hundreds of demonstrators who gathered at a nearby park, screaming at each other from across metal barricades.

One of them involved the National Enquirer, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump, paying $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know that Mr. Trump fathered a child out of wedlock. The publication later determined the claim was untrue.

The tabloid made another payment to Karen McDougal, Playboy’s playmate of the year in 1998, who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the National Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”

Mr. Cohen, who broke from Mr. Trump in 2018 after the hush-money deal came to light, is the prosecution’s star witness. He was sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to federal crimes relating to the hush money. Mr. Trump is likely to attack his credibility.

While serving as the commander in chief, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen, and that’s where the fraud kicked in, prosecutors say. In internal records, Mr. Trump’s company falsely classified the repayment to Mr. Cohen as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. The retainer agreement was made up, but there were no expenses, as the prosecutors say.

And Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing — as well as any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels — and has lashed out at Mr. Bragg with threatening and at times racist language, calling the district attorney, who is Black, an “animal” and summoning his followers to “PROTEST” his arrest. His posts in the run up to the attack on the Capitol reminded me of what he had written before.

The indictment, the product of a nearly five-year investigation, kicks off a new and volatile phase in Mr. Trump’s post-presidential life as he makes a third run for the White House. He leads in most polls but it will cause a stir in the race for the Republican nomination.

Mr. Bragg is the first prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, and has already entered the political spotlight, an uncomfortable position for a district attorney who has never before held elected office.

The federal prosecutors are scrutinizing the actions of Mr. Trump after his electoral defeat. A Georgia prosecutor is closing in on an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results in that state.

Mr. Trump’s allies have been heavily focused on the idea that he could face a gag order, something his advisers are also aware is a possibility after his broadsides against Mr. Bragg, who pushed for indictment, and Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case. There is no indication so far that the judge plans to do so.

Greene’s hush money protests against the Georgia Democratic candidate, Warren Harding, during his term in 1801–1908

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who is closely aligned with Mr. Trump, held a rally at the park across from the courthouse. She denounced the Democrats through a megaphone but her words were drowned out by protesters and counter protesters. After speaking for about five minutes, she was ushered out of the park by the police.

It’s a shorthand term for a practice that is sometimes legal: one person tries to persuade another through the use of money and/or goods to keep quiet about something bad.

Most scholars say the phrase came from Richard Steele, a playwright and journalist who wrote about morality and how people should conduct themselves in respectable society.

Jefferson said in the 1801 letter that he’d given money to James Thomson Callender, who was a man of genius suffering under persecution.

Callender had been telling people that the gifts were for writing articles defaming John Adams and George Washington and exposing an extramarital affair involving Alexander Hamilton.

About a year later, Callender wrote an article publicizing Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman on his estate, and the existence of their children.

A batch of letters released by the Library of Congress revealed that the 29th president, Warren Harding, was embroiled in at least two hush money agreements.

“If you want it to be my price, I will retire from public life at the end of my term, and never return to the area where I lived until I became wealthy again,” she wrote.

If FultonPhillips believed that he might be helpful by having a public position and influence, that’s when he would be more helpful. I will pay you $5,000 in March each year if I’m in public service.

He paid for her to be silent about the affair while he was president. That would be the equivalent in today’s dollars of $260,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator.

In a tell-all book called The President’s Daughter, Britton wrote about her yearslong relationship with Harding, which she said lasted until he died. She provided details about coming to an agreement with the politician to have her sister and brother-in-law adopt the child.

“I produced a small piece of paper on which my sister had entered necessary monthly expenses,” Britton wrote. He agreed to the amount, saying that if an arrangement like he hadsuggested would make me happier, then that’s what it would be. he was agreeable to it.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168044396/hush-money-history-presidents-trump

The story of a young man who broke into the DNC headquarters and demanded money from his lawyer and he said he had no money to pay off his lawyer

He and his lawyer were talking about getting money to pay off some people who broke into the DNC headquarters.