Former President Donald Trump will go on trial in Manhattan next week as he faces felony charges for falsifying bank records—the first of his criminal cases to go to trial—which will mark the culmination of a yearslong saga stemming from his alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and a “hush money” payment made during his 2016 campaign to keep her quiet.
July 2006Daniels—whose real name is Stephanie Clifford—met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Utah, she alleged in 2018 on “60 Minutes,” claiming they later went back to his hotel room, where they had sex and Trump allegedly suggested Daniels appear on his television show “Celebrity Apprentice.”
July 2007Daniels and Trump allegedly met again in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, where she claims they watched a documentary about shark attacks but did not have sex.
August 2007Trump called Daniels and informed her she would not be on “Celebrity Apprentice,” she alleges, telling “60 Minutes” they did not meet again at any point after that.
May 2011Daniels is interviewed by In Touch Magazine about her alleged affair with Trump in exchange for $15,000; magazine employees told CBS News the interview did not run at the time because then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen threatened to sue when they reached out for comment.
May – June 2011Several weeks after her In Touch interview, Daniels said she was approached by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot, who told her to “leave Trump alone” and allegedly threatened her, saying about Daniels’ daughter, “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
August 2015Trump and Cohen met with American Media (AMI) CEO David Pecker—whose company published The National Enquirer—where Pecker allegedly agreed to serve as the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears” and look out for negative stories, according to a statement of facts by prosecutors in the criminal case. That allegedly resulted in AMI paying a doorman $30,000 to keep quiet about a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock, even after it was later determined to be untrue, and paying model Karen McDougal $150,000 to “catch and kill” her allegations of an affair with Trump.
October 7, 2016In the weeks before the 2016 election, The Washington Post reports on unaired footage from “Access Hollywood” in 2005, in which Trump is recorded speaking inappropriately about women, saying he “grab[s] them by the pussy” and “when you’re a star, they let you do it.”
October 10, 2016AMI connected Cohen with Daniels’ lawyer after the company was alerted to her allegations about Trump, prosecutors allege, with Cohen reaching a deal to pay Daniels $130,000 for the rights to her allegations. Trump allegedly tries to delay Cohen paying the amount, but ultimately agrees to the payment, which they allegedly agreed Cohen would make and Trump would reimburse him for.
October 27, 2016Cohen wires Daniels’ lawyer $130,000 through a shell company.
November 8, 2016Trump wins the 2016 election.
January 2017Cohen, Trump and then-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg reach an agreement that Cohen will be reimbursed $420,000 in total for the Daniels payment, prosecutors allege—adding a $60,000 bonus, $50,000 for a different expense and $180,000 to cover taxes—which would be made through 12 monthly payments of $35,000 each, handled through the Trump Organization and allegedly falsely labeled as being for legal services through a retainer agreement.
February – December 2017Cohen submits invoices each month for the $35,000 payments, with prosecutors alleging that the first three were paid through the Trump Organization, while Trump personally paid the final nine out of his bank account; all were allegedly falsely labeled as being for legal payments.
January 12, 2018The Wall Street Journal is the first to report Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels; Cohen denies Trump’s affair with Daniels in a statement to the publication and accuses them of “raising outlandish allegations against my client”—and sends a statement from Daniels denying the affair—but he does not deny the $130,000 payment.
February 13, 2018Cohen admits to the $130,000 payment, but claims it came from his own coffers and he was not reimbursed.
March 6, 2018Daniels sues Trump, alleging her non-disclosure agreement with him about the alleged affair is invalid because Trump did not personally sign it.
April 5, 2018Trump makes his first public comments about the $130,000 payment, saying he didn’t know about the payment and to “ask Michael Cohen” about why it was made.
April 9, 2018The FBI searches Cohen’s home and office; Trump later publicly tells Cohen not to “flip” and cooperate with investigators, allegedly telling him in private to “stay strong.”
May 2, 2018Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s then-attorney, says on Fox News Trump reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000, but claimed Trump “didn’t know about the specifics of it.”
May 3, 2018Trump claims on Twitter that Cohen “received a monthly retainer” that was not paid through Trump’s campaign, and alleges the lawyer made the agreement with Daniels using that retainer.
August 21, 2018Cohen pleads guilty to five counts of tax evasion, false statements and campaign finance violations in federal court, stemming from his payment to Daniels (Trump is not charged); he’s later sentenced to three years in prison, which began in May 2019 and ended slightly early in November 2021, with part of his sentence spent under home confinement.
August 23, 2018The New York Times reports the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is considering opening a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization stemming from the payment to Daniels.
October 15, 2018A judge dismisses Daniels’ claims that Trump defamed her when he denied their alleged affair, ruling Trump’s speech was protected under the First Amendment (the ruling doesn’t address her NDA allegations); she’s later also ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees.
March 7, 2019Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump over the NDA is dismissed after Trump and Cohen agreed not to enforce it; Trump is later ordered to pay her legal fees, as the court finds Daniels to be the “prevailing party.”
August – September 2019Then-Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance subpoenas the Trump Organization for documents related to the “hush money” payment and subpoenas Trump for his tax returns—kicking off a yearslong legal battle that ultimately resulted in the Supreme Court ruling multiple times that Trump had to turn over the documents.
November 2, 2021Alvin Bragg is elected Manhattan District Attorney, replacing the outgoing Vance.
April 7, 2022Bragg releases a statement confirming his Trump investigation is still active, despite the resignation of two prosecutors who alleged Bragg signaled he had doubts about moving forward with the probe.
January 2023Bragg’s investigation begins ramping up, with Cohen returning to speak with prosecutors on January 17 and The New York Times reporting January 30 that Bragg has convened a grand jury, which is hearing evidence specifically related to the alleged “hush money” scheme.
March 30, 2023Trump is indicted on felony charges in New York state court, marking the first time a former or sitting president has ever faced criminal charges.
Trump’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection and run for approximately six weeks. He faces 34 felony counts for falsification of business records, based on the allegedly falsely labeled reimbursement payments he and the Trump Organization made to Cohen. Those charges could result in prison time if Trump’s convicted, though legal experts believe it’s unlikely he’d be sentenced to prison as a first-time offender.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and has denied the criminal case as a “witch hunt” designed to hurt his presidential campaign. In a motion to dismiss the charges against him, Trump’s lawyers argued the former president “cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts,” also arguing the charges are “politically motivated” and were brought too late. Judge Juan Merchan, who’s overseeing the trial, has denied all of Trump’s requests to dismiss the charges against him.
The “hush money” case is one of four criminal cases that has been brought against Trump in the year since Bragg indicted him in Manhattan. The ex-president also faces two federal trials—one for trying to overturn the 2020 election and another for allegedly mishandling White House documents—on top of another state case in Georgia for his post-2020 election efforts. (He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.) The Manhattan case is so far the only one with a concrete trial date, as Trump has sought to delay the cases against him—and, in other cases, been broadly successful. His federal election case is paused until the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s motion to dismiss—which could take until June—and his documents case nixed a planned May trial date after Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon pushed back deadlines in the case. The Georgia case is also still without a trial date, though prosecutors have requested it to begin in August. Trump has launched a barrage of last-ditch efforts to delay the “hush money” case as the trial date has approached, which Merchan has largely rebuffed, though he did push back the trial from its original start date of March 25 after prosecutors agreed with the brief delay. The ex-president was most recently dealt a blow on Tuesday, when an appeals court declined to delay the trial as Trump appeals a gag order against him in the case.
