Pros: from Trump criminal plan to manipulate 2016 vote. Defence: nothing wrong with influencing the vote

Manhattan prosecutors have accused Donald Trump of lying "over and over again" about payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the days leading up to the 2016 election to prevent his affair from becoming public.

The 77-year-old former US president 'orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election', Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo told the seven men and five women chosen to decide the case. Trump continued to cover up the transactions because he "wanted to conceal his criminal conduct and that of others," Colangelo added. This was how it began as the first criminal trial against a former US president began.

The prosecutor explained that "the conspiracy began" a few months after Trump announced his candidacy in 2015 in a meeting between him, his handyman lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. At that meeting "they set up a conspiracy to influence the presidential election by withholding negative information about Trump in order to help him get elected," he said. Colangelo said the conspiracy included Cohen's payments to porn star Stormy Daniels a few weeks before the 2016 election so she would not reveal an old affair with the tycoon. Payments that he claims were made 'at the direction of the defendant to influence the presidential election'. After the vote Trump reimbursed Cohen for those payments and "disguised their purpose." The tycoon 'stated in corporate documents that he was paying Cohen for legal services under a non-existent agreement'.

Matthew Colangelo described in court the 'catch and kill' practice used by the tycoon, his lawyer Michael Cohen and National Enquirer tabloid publisher David Pecker to protect The Donald's image. "It's a way of buying damaging information not to publish it but to hide it, make it go away and, in this case, help the candidate," Colangelo said. The first incident, he reported, was the tabloid's payment of $30,000 to the former Trump Tower doorman for an exclusive that was later covered up, that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock. The second was the payment of $150,000 to Playboy bunny Karen McDougal for another exclusive story not to be published, concerning her past relationship with the tycoon: 'The defendant desperately wanted this information about Karen McDougal not to become public because he was worried about the election'. The prosecutor also claimed that the tabloid was used to attack Trump's opponents in the race for the White House, accusing Bern Carson of medical malpractice and Republican Senator Ted Cruz of 'sexual infidelity' and of 'having some family connection to Jfk's assassination'.

"Donald Trump is innocent, he has committed no crime". This is how Todd Blanche, one of the lawyers of the former US president in the porn star case, began his preliminary statements. Trump "is a man, he is a husband, he is a father. He is a person just like you and just like me,' the lawyer continued, insisting on calling the tycoon 'president'. The lawyer then challenged the indictment castle, arguing that the 34 counts are just pieces of paper and that "none of them is a crime", referring to the 34 cheques with which, according to the Pm, the tycoon's then-lawyer Michael Cohen was allegedly reimbursed after he advanced out of his own pocket the $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. "The jury will uncover a lot of reasonable doubt," he added.