Trump Legal Troubles Key People

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio in 2021. Tony Dejak/Associated Press file

As Donald Trump fought his way to victory in the 2016 presidential campaign, key allies tried to smooth his bumpy path by paying off two women who had been thinking of going public with allegations of extramarital encounters with the Republican.

The payoffs, and the way that Trump’s company accounted for one of them, are believed to be at the center of a grand jury investigation that led to a criminal indictment and could result in the first-ever criminal prosecution of a former U.S. president.

Here’s a look at key figures in the case:

STORMY DANIELS

Trump Legal Troubles Key Players

Stormy Daniels Charles Sykes/Invision via Associated Press file

A porn actor who’s also had bit parts in mainstream films like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid the money in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign after her representative said she was willing to make on-the-record statements to the National Enquirer or on television confirming a sexual encounter with Trump.

Advertisement

Daniels attempted to capitalize on her newfound notoriety after news of the payment became public, embarking on a nationwide strip club tour in 2018. During a stop in Columbus, Ohio, Daniels was arrested on suspicion of inappropriately touching an undercover officer, but the charges were dropped hours later.

Her former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is serving 11 years in prison for extortion and fraud, including a conviction for stealing $297,000 in proceeds from Daniels’ 2018 book, “Full Disclosure.”

KAREN MCDOUGAL

A former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump in the mid-2000s, McDougal was paid $150,000 in 2016 by the parent company of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship. Trump denies any affair.

The story never ran. The company suppressed McDougal’s story until after the election, a dubious journalism practice known as “catch and kill.” American Media Inc. has acknowledged that its payments to McDougal were done specifically to assist Trump’s election bid and were made “in concert” with his campaign.

McDougal has said Trump tried to pay her after their first sexual tryst at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2006. McDougal said she continued the relationship with Trump for about 10 months and broke it off in April 2007 because she felt guilty.

Advertisement

MICHAEL COHEN

A lawyer by training, Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017, serving as Trump’s fixer. He once proudly proclaimed he’d “take a bullet” for his boss.

Cohen took the lead in arranging the payment to Daniels, passing it through a corporation he established for the purpose. He says he was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the payment and related bonuses as “legal expenses.”

Trump Legal Troubles

Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen speak to reporters after a second day of testimony before a grand jury investigating hush money payments he arranged and made on the former president’s behalf on Wednesday, in New York. Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

A few months earlier, Cohen had also arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer to make a similar $150,00 payment to McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump.

Cohen made recordings of a conversation in which he and Trump spoke about the arrangement to pay McDougal through the tabloid publisher. At one point, Trump said: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump denies the affair.

After Trump became president, Cohen held himself out as someone who could potentially advise corporate clients on the new administration, collecting hefty fees from companies seeking influence in the new White House.

Advertisement

Federal prosecutors in 2018 charged Cohen with evading taxes related to his investments in the taxi industry, lying to Congress, and with campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments.

Cohen, who blamed Trump for his legal problems, pleaded guilty and served about a year in prison before being released to home confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He pleaded guilty and served federal prison time and is now a key prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation.

ALLEN WEISSELBERG

The longtime chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, Weisselberg made key decisions in how the company kept its books but did not appear to be cooperating with the hush-money investigation.

During testimony before Congress in 2019, Cohen said it was Weisselberg who decided how to structure his reimbursement for the payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen said Weisselberg paid the money out over 12 months “so that it would look like a retainer.”

Federal prosecutors gave Weisselberg limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for his grand jury testimony in their investigation of the payments. But the Manhattan district attorney’s office ultimately brought unrelated charges against Weisselberg for dodging income taxes on job perks he got from Trump’s company, including a rent-free apartment and a luxury car.

Advertisement

He pleaded guilty and is serving a short jail term set to expire in April.

DAVID PECKER

The National Enquirer’s former publisher and a longtime Trump friend, Pecker testified twice before the grand jury about the tabloid’s involvement in suppressing negative stories about Trump.

David Pecker, Shape & Men's Fitness Super Bowl Party, New York, America - 31 Jan 2014

David Pecker, chairman and CEO of American Media Marion Curtis via Associated Press file

Pecker met with Cohen during Trump’s 2016 campaign and said the Enquirer’s parent company would help buy and bury potentially damaging stories about Trump’s relationship with women.

Pecker, who was the Enquirer’s chairman and chief executive at the time, agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such stories. In June 2016, he alerted Cohen that McDougal’s lawyer had approached the publication seeking to sell her story about an alleged affair with Trump.

The Enquirer’s owner at the time, American Media Inc., then agreed to pay McDougal for “limited life rights” to the story of her relationship with “any then-married man.” The publisher said it would feature her on two magazine covers and print more than 100 of her articles in exchange for $150,000.

Advertisement

Cohen signed an agreement to buy the nondisclosure part of McDougal’s contract for $125,000 through a company he formed, but Pecker later called off the deal and told Cohen to tear up the agreement.

Federal prosecutors agreed in 2018 not to prosecute American Media in exchange for its cooperation in the campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea and prison sentence. The Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, deeming the McDougal deal as a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.”

Pecker stepped down as CEO of the publisher in 2020.

ALVIN BRAGG

Manhattan’s first Black district attorney, Bragg could become the first prosecutor anywhere to bring a criminal case against a former U.S. president. The Democrat inherited an investigation of Trump when he took office in January 2022.

Trump New York Prosecutor

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg participates in a news conference in New York on Feb. 7. Seth Wenig/Associated Press file

Bragg grew up in Harlem during the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, where he says he was held at gunpoint six times – three times by police. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he previously worked as a federal prosecutor, chief deputy state attorney general, civil rights lawyer, and law school professor.

Advertisement

Bragg campaigned for office as a progressive reformer. He was elected with 83% of the vote in deep-blue Manhattan.

After taking office, Bragg paused an investigation into Trump’s business dealings that had been seen as gathering momentum toward a possible indictment. But after his prosecutors won a trial last year in which Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, was convicted of tax fraud, Bragg convened a new grand jury to examine the hush money payouts.

JOSEPH TACOPINA

A Brooklyn-born lawyer known for his sharp suits and celebrity clientele, Tacopina is the public face of Trump’s defense team.

Trump is just the latest big name to turn to Tacopina, whose past clients have included the rappers Meek Mill, Jay-Z, and A$AP Rocky and baseball great Alex Rodriguez.

In recent weeks Tacopina has been making the former president’s case on TV news shows, questioning Bragg’s investigation and motives, challenging Cohen’s credibility as a star witness, and suggesting Trump was extorted.

Advertisement

It wasn’t always like that. In a TV appearance in 2018, long before Tacopina started representing Trump, he told CNN that the payment to Daniels appeared to be “illegal” and a “potential campaign finance issue.” He told the network that claims Trump wasn’t aware of the payment “doesn’t pass the straight-face test.”

Trump hired Tacopina in January, initially to defend him against a civil lawsuit brought by magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her in the mid-1990s. That case is scheduled to go to trial next month.

Tacopina played ice hockey in college and later dabbled as a player agent. He owns S.P.A.L., a team in the second tier of Italian soccer.

SUSAN NECHELES

Necheles is a New York City defense lawyer who represented Trump’s company at its tax fraud trial last year and has been working behind the scenes on the former president’s criminal defense, meeting with prosecutors in an attempt to head off potential charges.

Trump Legal Troubles

Attorney Susan Necheles arrives at criminal court on Oct. 31 in New York. John Minchillo/Associated Press file

In the past, she served as counsel to the late Genovese crime family underboss Venero Mangano, known as Benny Eggs, and defended John Gotti’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler, in a contempt-of-court case in the early 1990s. In recent years, the Yale Law School graduate has represented liquor heiress Clare Bronfman in the NXIVM cult case.

Advertisement

Like Tacopina, Necheles is a former Brooklyn prosecutor.

During the Trump Organization trial, she made a point of referring to Trump as “President Trump.”

“This is not a political statement,” she explained to jurors. “My parents were immigrants and migrants,” she continued. “And in my home, we referred to all former presidents as presidents out of respect for the office, whether we supported him, or disagreed with him.”

MATTHEW COLANGELO

Bragg hired Colangelo in December to lead the investigation. They previously worked together on Trump-related matters as senior officials at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James.

During his tenure with the attorney general’s office, Colangelo worked on a lawsuit that resulted in the closure of Trump’s charitable foundation for misusing funds. He was also part of a wave of state litigation against Trump administration policies, resulting in dozens of lawsuits that challenged everything from diluted environmental standards to changes to U.S. mail service ahead of the 2020 election.

After President Biden took office, Colangelo joined the U.S. Justice Department and was temporarily it’s third in command. He then became a principal deputy to Associate U.S. Attorney General Vanita Gupta. Previously, Colangelo served as deputy assistant to President Barack Obama, was a deputy director of the National Economic Council, and was a chief of staff for the U.S. labor secretary.

Related Headlines


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: