Trump indicted: How did Michael Cohen arrange hush payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal?

WASHINGTON – The Charges against Donald Trump were not releasedbut Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was Investigating pre-election hush money payments totaling $280,000 in 2016 silencing two women who claimed to have had sex with Trump.

Legal experts have said the fees are based on New York law could include a misdemeanor for falsifying business records, for allegedly paying attorneys’ fees, combined with a felony for breaching campaign finance for benefiting Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the investigation politically motivated. He initially refused to make the payments, but accepted the refund his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen.

“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession to ‘get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable — they’ve charged a completely innocent person with flagrant manipulation of the election,” Trump said in a statement Thursday.

Here’s what we know about the payments:

Who is Stormy Daniels?

The payments were outlined under oath Testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee in 2019.

Cohen and at least one of the women, porn actress Stormy Daniels, who received $130,000, have appeared before the grand jury. The other woman, Playboy model Karen McDougal, received $150,000.

Cohen told the House panel that he was reimbursed a total of $420,000 for his role in the payments, in part to cover his taxes and a $60,000 bonus for himself. Payments were made — some in checks signed by Trump — in monthly installments of $35,000 under the guise of a statutory advance, Cohen said.

Cohen said he started a shell company called Essential Consultants to pay Daniels and hide the deal from his wife.

Daniels’ attorney, Clark Brewster, said the indictment indicated that “no one is above the law.”

Who is Karen McDougal?

Cohen routed the payment to McDougal through an agreement with National Enquirer as part of a strategy called “catch and kill.” The strategy involved the tabloid allegedly paying for McDougal’s story and then killing her story after preventing her from telling anyone else about it.

The story goes on

Cohen was convicted and partially imprisoned for his role in the payments. David Pecker, an executive at the company that edited the National Enquirer, appeared before the grand jury Monday. The tabloid was fined $187,500 for supporting Trump’s campaign.

Featuring: Kevin Johnson, Josh Meyer

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hush money payments are key to New York investigations into Trump