Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who can prevent Trump’s return to the White House

Black Monday for Donald Trump. It begins in New York, the first criminal judicial process in history against a former president of the United States for alleged bribery of former porn film actress Stephanie Clifford, ‘Stormy Daniels’, in order to buy her silence about an alleged relationship between them. The trial begins this Monday, April 15 with jury selection.

Trump faces 34 counts of fraud for falsifying documents to hide payments made in 2016, during his presidential campaign, to the aforementioned actress. The former president denies everything.

Judge Juan Merchan, who is leading the case against Trump, announced two weeks ago an extension of the gag order in the context of the trial. The magistrate harshly criticized the magnate for some publications on his social network, Truth Social, in which he attacked his daughter with whom he has a conflict of interest since she is a consultant for the Democratic party.

Each of the 34 charges he faces carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison. If the verdict is guilty, the maximum sentence that could be imposed is 20 years, which is the established limit established by the law in New York for these crimes.

The Republican was accused of falsifying business records for the secret payment of $130,000 (more than 120,000 euros) to Clifford without revealing a word about the alleged sexual relationship that the two would have had in the past and that the tycoon has always denied. These payments in themselves do not represent illegality, but the way in which Trump would have made them does, which would have required the mediation of his then lawyer Michael Cohen to hide the disbursements through the business conglomerate led by the former US president.

Except for the Daniels case, which begins today, it is very difficult for the magnate to be tried in the 34 cases before November 5, the date on which Americans are called to vote in the presidential elections, arrives. Therefore, this process does not disqualify him from holding public office, but it does cause a lot of reputational damage to his public image and, therefore, to his campaign.