New York prosecutors said on the first day of Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial that the former president broke the law and corrupted the 2016 election by trying to cover up sexual encounters with a porn star and a Playboy model, while his defense lawyer said he committed no crime.
Jurors in the historic trial also heard briefly from the prosecution's first witness: former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who prosecutors say participated in a "catch and kill" scheme to suppress unflattering stories about Trump and help him get elected.
In the first-ever trial of a former U.S. 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 says they had 10 years earlier. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies the encounter took place.
Prosecutors portrayed the payment as a criminal effort to deceive voters at a time when Trump was facing other accusations of crude sexual behavior.
"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," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. "It was election fraud, pure and simple."
