Criminal probe into ‘Donald Trump’s role in paying porn star Stormy Daniels gets jump-started’

Manhattan’s woke DA is said to be restarting a legal probe into Donald Trump over a hush-money payment made to a porn star who claims she had a one-night stand with the ex-president.

Alvin Bragg is said to be probing whether the illegal $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, made shortly before the 2016 presidential election, could be tied to Trump.

It was made by the president’s former fixer Michael Cohen to try and silence Daniels’ claims of a one night stand in 2006, when Trump’s third wife Melania was pregnant with their son Barron, now 16.

Trump denies he had sex with Daniels, but Cohen was later convicted of making an illegal campaign contribution. 

Cohen served three years in prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations related to the payments as part of a federal probe.

He has always alleged how he was following Trump’s orders. 

Cohen was later reimbursed for the cash by Trump, with Bragg now likely to try and say that proves there was a conspiracy between the two men. 

His office, under predecessor Cyrus Vance previously investigated Trump – but that probe appeared to come to a halt earlier in the year.

According to The New York Times, Bragg’s strategy is an untried one. He is believed to be turning the screws on former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to help him build the case.  

Weisselberg has already struck a plea deal over tax charges related to freebies and donations he received while working for Trump, but has refused to turn informant against the former president. 

Bragg is said to hope threatening him with fresh insurance fraud charges could change that. He has been accused of giving insurers a figure for Trump organization assets without having them properly valued.

Weisselberg is already facing a stretch in the notorious Rikers Island prison over the tax charges – with the prospect of a longer stretch there a potentially-powerful bargaining tool in Bragg’s armor.

Trump also faces legal trouble over the FBI’s raid on his Mar-a-Lago country club in Florida in August. He is accused of illegally holding classified documents there.

And he could land himself in hot water should an investigation into claims he stoked the January 6 riots lead to criminal charges.  

Trump has consistently denied having an affair with Daniels and explained the payment as being a personal matter rather than a campaign expense. 

In that particular federal case, former District Attorney Cyrus Vance, looked into whether Trump had broken any state laws by making the payment and whether any records held by The Trump Organization were falsified in the process.

Falsifying business records can be charged as a misdemeanor in New York. In order to make it a felony, prosecutors would need to show that Trump falsified the hush-money records to help commit or conceal a second crime. 

The Trump Organization was subpoenaed by the District Attorney’s Office in late 2019 for the specific records that tied the payments to Cohen that showed how he helped the funds for Daniels.