New York prosecutor Matthew Colangelo has accused former United States President Donald Trump of corrupting the 2016 election in his criminal hush money trial.
The prosecutors said Trump broke the law and corrupted the 2016 election by trying to cover up sexual encounters with a porn star and a Playboy model.
In the first-ever trial of a former US president, Trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she claimed they had 10 years earlier.
Prosecutors portrayed the payment as a criminal effort to deceive voters at a time when Trump was facing other accusations of crude sexual behavior.
Colangelo said: “This was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.
“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
But Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche told the jury that the former president did not commit any crimes, adding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should not have brought the case.
“There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy. They put something sinister on this idea, as if it’s a crime,” Blanche said.
Hush money trial: How Donald Trump corrupted US 2016 election – Prosecutor