Jurors hearing the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president could make their verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money case as early as next week, with potentially major consequences for the 2024 race for the White House.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying company records to cover up a payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Daniels had threatened to make public her story about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, a relationship he denies.
The New York case is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal charges Trump faces. But it has led to the Republican presidential candidate spending more time in court than campaigning in recent weeks, drawing excessive attention to the one case likely to go to trial before his Nov. 5 presidential contest against the Democratic president Joe Biden.
