Hush Money: 34 Felony Counts for Falsifying Business Records — Found Guilty

Overview

On May 30, 2024, a jury of 12 New Yorkers found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records. He became the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony.

The crime was not complicated. He paid a woman to stay quiet before an election. He disguised the payment as legal fees. He lied about it on paper 34 times.

The Payment

On October 27, 2016 — eleven days before the election — Michael Cohen wired $130,000 to Stormy Daniels's attorney through a shell company called Essential Consultants LLC. The money bought her silence about a sexual encounter she described having with Trump in 2006.

The payment came after similar arrangements had been made with Karen McDougal (through the National Enquirer's "catch and kill" operation), after the Access Hollywood tape had already damaged the campaign, and at the moment when any additional story about Trump's conduct with women would have been maximally harmful.

The Falsification

The 34 counts did not arise from the payment itself — they arose from how Trump concealed it. He reimbursed Cohen through 11 checks (most signed personally) totaling $420,000, each accompanied by a false invoice describing the money as legal expenses under a retainer agreement that did not exist.

Each false invoice and each corresponding business record was a count. Thirty-four counts.

The "Catch and Kill" System

David Pecker — former CEO of American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer — testified about the arrangement he had maintained with Trump for years. AMI would identify damaging stories, pay for exclusive rights, and then kill them. Karen McDougal's story about an affair with Trump cost AMI $150,000. A doorman's fabricated story about Trump fathering a child cost $30,000. None were published.

The Stormy Daniels payment was different only in that Cohen paid it personally when AMI declined.