Here’s what you need to know about the indictment of Donald Trump
Lesson summary
Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where JR and I help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. This is lesson number 566, so JR has uploaded the full lesson—including the transcript—to PlainEnglish.com/566.
Now just a word on the transcript. The transcript includes every word I say on the audio lesson. But it also includes links to other expressions we’ve talked about in past lessons. This is pretty incredible. Today’s transcript includes links to: at the time, at least, cover up, a stretch, much less, technicalities, rely on, and more. So just by reading the transcript of today’s lesson, you can explore all these other expressions from the past. All that for you at PlainEnglish.com/566.
We of course have a new expression for you today; that is “drag on.” And it’s Monday so we have a quote of the week. Let’s get going.
The complicated charges against Donald Trump
To his very long and unimpressive list of “firsts,” Donald Trump can now add one more: He is the first former American president to be indicted.
Here are the charges. Donald Trump has been accused of falsifying business records. The indictment goes back to events that happened in 2016, when Trump was first running for president. Stephanie Clifford is an adult film actress who goes by the name Stormy Daniels. The charges say that in 2016, Stormy Daniels was preparing to go public with a story that she had an affair with Trump in 2006.
The Trump campaign believed at the time that this story would have hurt his chances in the 2016 election. So one of Trump’s lawyers paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about the affair. She took the money and didn’t say anything—at least not right away.
After that, Trump reimbursed his lawyer the full amount and more in small payments in 2016 and 2017. He called those payments “legal services” and they came from his business. But actually, prosecutors say, the $130,000 was not for business legal services at all, but for hush money—money paid to someone to keep quiet.
It may be unseemly, but it’s not illegal to pay someone to keep quiet about having done a legal thing. And so Trump is not being charged with paying Stormy Daniels to keep quiet.
Instead, he is being charged with falsifying business records with the intent to deceive. The crime, prosecutors say, is that he changed his business records—he said the payments were legal services when they were really hush money—he changed his business records to conceal another crime.
This is important because ordinarily , falsifying business records is a very minor crime that rarely carries a serious punishment. But New York law makes this a felony—a serious crime—if lying on your business records was done to cover up another crime.
So the local prosecutor had to link Trump’s business records to something else that he did, something else illegal that he did. And they determined he was doing this to cover up violations of federal election finance laws—that these payments to Stormy Daniels broke national laws about election campaign spending.
This is a real stretch for several reasons. First, federal prosecutors already decided not to prosecute Trump for campaign finance violations. So the local prosecutor needed to show Trump was covering up a bigger crime—but he picked a “crime” that Trump was never even charged with, much less convicted of. And the crime of not disclosing a $130,000 campaign payment is extremely minor. So the prosecutor’s legal approach is very uncertain.
Second, the statute of limitations on this crime is five years. That means, five years after an event, prosecutors can’t bring charges. The last Trump payment was in December 2017, more than five years ago. But New York law sometimes allows the clock to stop on the statute of limitations when a person is out of state, and Trump has not lived there in years. But this argument is also uncertain.
Third, the prosecution’s top witness is Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen. But Michael Cohen is a problematic witness. In another case, he pleaded guilty to totally different campaign finance violations and he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. So the prosecutor is going to rely heavily on someone who has already been convicted of lying. Trump’s current lawyers will pounce on this, arguing that Michael Cohen has no credibility as a witness.
Because of its complexity, the case may drag on for years—well past the 2024 election. It may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Or it may not: it may end with a whimper if a New York judge dismisses the case early.
Many legal experts, including many Democrats, think these are legal acrobatics. Very thoughtful, measured lawyers—people who are not in Trump’s corner —they describe this as exceedingly uncertain: that is a polite way of saying that this is an aggressive prosecution.
Trump is also being investigated for several other crimes, including his role in the violent Capitol protests in 2021, his attempt to falsify election results in 2020, and his handling of classified information after he left office. He’s being sued by the attorney general of New York State for fraud, by an author who accuses him of sexual assault, and by others.
So Donald Trump is in serious legal trouble. But this prosecution looks like the weakest of all the cases against him. Trump’s supporters will be justified when they object, saying that he’s being singled out for prosecution. In this case, the legal theory is untested, the law is unclear, and there are oodles of technicalities that could doom the case at any stage. It’s hard to imagine a prosecutor bringing this case against anyone not named Trump.
It may also not help in the political effort to stop Trump’s return to the White House. If convicted of this state crime, Trump could still run for federal office. It puts Trump back on the top of the news agenda, right when the country was starting to tire of him, and right when his own party was starting to take tentative steps away from him.
And it’s unlikely to change voters’ minds about Trump—they already know him, flaws and all. For better or for worse, a large percentage of the electorate still loves him. If anything, this prosecution will let Trump continue to play his most favored role—that of the victim. His campaign got $8 million in donations in the days after his arrest.
Not the first to be arrested
Donald Trump may be the first president to be indicted but he is not the first to be arrested. In 1872, Ulysses S. Grant was stopped in Washington for speeding—not in a car, but for driving his own horse-drawn carriage too fast. A police officer recognized him and let him off with a warning, telling the sitting president that his speed was putting pedestrians’ safety at risk. But the next day, he saw Grant speeding again, and once again he stopped the speeding carriage.
Here’s what that arresting police officer said: “I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest.” They then rode together in Grant’s carriage to the police station.
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