In the ongoing trial of former President Donald Trump, a paralegal from Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg’s office testified on Friday about phone call records related to Michael Cohen and Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels. The paralegal confirmed that some phone call records between Mr. Cohen and Ms. Clifford’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, were deleted, raising questions about the integrity of the evidence in the trial.
The Trump defense team alleges that the deletions are significant and challenge the prosecution’s submitted call records into evidence without informing them about the missing data. Prosecutors argue that these records bolster their case that President Trump falsified business records to conceal payments made to Ms. Clifford in an effort to maintain her silence about the alleged affair with Mr. Trump, which he has denied.
President Trump’s legal team has accused Mr. Bragg of evidence tampering, a class E felony in New York state. The development comes at the end of an intense week for President Trump, who faced gag order sanctions, two failed attempts by his defense team to have a mistrial declared, and Ms. Clifford taking the stand.
Jurors must now decide if prosecutors have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump was involved in falsifying business records as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election. President Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, which is typically a misdemeanor charge. However, prosecutors argue that these actions were part of a cover-up for an election influencing scheme and therefore amount to a felony.
Legal experts have challenged the way Mr. Bragg elevated the misdemeanor into a felony charge. Retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz argued that Mr. Bragg’s office has violated voters’ rights with the Trump prosecution and that the case amounts to a criminal conspiracy to influence elections.
As the trial continues, Michael Cohen is set to testify next week, and he will be called upon to clarify the claims that led to this case. The defense team argues that Mr. Cohen was paid attorney’s fees, while prosecutors maintain that these legal expense categorizations were fraudulent in order to cover up payments meant to buy Ms. Clifford’s silence about the alleged affair.