According to a new source, a Manhattan grand jury started hearing testimony on Monday in a criminal investigation into a 2016 hush money payment that former President Donald Trump ordered to porn star Stormy Daniels.
According to The New York Times, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, a witness in that probe, was seen Monday entering the courthouse where the grand jury convened with his counsel.
The publication also revealed that the district attorney’s office in Manhattan’s recent communications with Trump’s 2016 campaign involved prosecutors. Requests for comment from Trump’s counsel did not immediately elicit a response.
As of last year, it was widely believed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had abandoned serious efforts to possibly charge Trump with crimes related to the Daniels payment or other acts. The decision to present evidence to a grand jury is the latest development in this dramatic about-face.
After his agency successfully prosecuted the Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, for a plot to evade paying taxes on executives’ income, Bragg reportedly reopened the investigation into Trump last October. Bragg had a face-to-face meeting with Michael Cohen, the former counsel for Trump.
On January 17, Cohen told CBS News, “It appears that I’ll probably be meeting with them again.” A key witness in the investigation is Cohen. When Trump was the Republican nominee for president in the fall of 2016, Cohen gave Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her promise to remain silent about her claims that they had sex once in 2005.
Later, Cohen acknowledged that he made that payment at Trump’s direction to prevent Daniels from hurting his chances of winning the presidency. Trump has refuted reports that they had sex.
In 2018, Cohen entered a guilty plea to various financial offenses, including a federal campaign finance violation involving the Daniels payment.
When asked if Cohen would testify before the grand jury, Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, responded to CNBC, “We’re not requested to do anything at the time, but we’re completely complying.” On Tuesday, Trump decried the investigation in a post on social media.
“With respect to the “Stormy” nonsense, it is VERY OLD & happened a long time ago, long past the very publicly known & accepted deadline of the Statute of Limitations,” Trump wrote.
“I placed full Reliance on the JUDGEMENT & ADVICE OF COUNCIL, who I had every reason to believe had a license to practice law, was competent, & was able to provide solid legal services appropriately,” Trump wrote. “He came from a good law firm, represented other clients over the years, & there was NO reason not to rely on him, and I did.”
A five-year statute of limitations governs the majority of felonies in New York state, shielding Trump from the prosecution about the payment to Daniels because it happened more than six years ago.
But according to state law, if a defendant is “continually outside this state,” the clock on the legislation may be postponed for an additional five years. Since leaving office in January 2021 after serving in the White House for four years, Trump has resided in Florida and New Jersey. A Georgia prosecutor is also looking into whether Trump committed a crime by meddling in Georgia’s 2020 election and the New York grand jury.
In connection with that inquiry, a special grand jury in Atlanta recently released a report still under seal. The prosecutor, Fulton County DA Fani Willis, will decide shortly whether to press charges in that case and against whom.
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