Stormy Daniels

Former president Donald Trump claims he will be arrested on Tuesday over claims he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged affair.

In August, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to the payments. This was the first sign of a federal investigation into the matter. Cohen used a statement he claimed was from Daniels to deny the affair. Trump responded by further appealing to the Supreme Court. After the story broke, Daniels was arrested while performing at Sirens Gentleman's Club in a police sting. Trump made his first public comments on the incident April 6. Two employees alleged that Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue the magazine if the interview ran. Trump has always denied the affair. She later began working at the local Gold Club in Geismar. I was just sort of in the middle of the road,' Daniels told the Times about her status in school. It comes more than six years after Trump's lawyers paid Daniels a total of $130,000 to keep quiet about the affair, with New York prosecutors considering if he should face charges. If Trump's claims about an imminent arrest are true, it would make him the first former president ever to face criminal charges.

A five-year story finally looks to be nearing some kind of conclusion. John Bowden takes a look at the saga that may lead to criminal charges against Donald ...

Cohen appears before the grand jury, and Mr Trump is invited to provide testimony as well. Just a few months later, it appears that Mr Bragg’s team is taking up the case with an interest that the DoJ and his predecessor never exhibited. Mr Bragg took office in January 2021, the same month that Mr Trump left office. Then, in late 2022, The New York Times reports that Manhattan’s new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has ordered his office to jump back in to the investigation after leaving it on the back burner for several years. Filed earlier in the year, Ms Daniels had sought damages from Mr Trump for denying her claims of an affair, which she said harmed her credibilty. At least two commissioners believe that there is evidence that the Trump campaign knowingly committed crimes. As part of an unrelated investigation headed up by Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign and Russian election interference in 2016, Cohen’s New York office is raided by the FBI. She is no longer bound by the nondisclosure agreement, which Mr Trump’s attorney did not argue was still valid, but unable to pursue any means of forcing the president to speak under oath about her situation. The issue of whether Mr Trump reimbursed his attorney for the hush payment remains open. Mainstream and left-leaning news outlets are consumed by coverage, culminating in a vivid description of the situation by Ms Daniels herself during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper. More than a year later, the story finally makes it to print in a flurry of media activity. At the time, the basis of her claim took on an interesting angle thanks to a lawsuit she filed against then-President Donald Trump.