Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Let's listen in
on a New York Supreme Court indictment
returned by a Manhattan grand jury
on 34 felony counts of falsifying
business records in the first degree
under New York state law.
It is a felony
to falsify business records
with intent to defraud an intent
to conceal another crime.
That is exactly what this case is about.
34 false statements
made to cover up other crimes.
These are felony crimes
in New York State,
no matter who you are,
we cannot and will not normalize
serious criminal conduct.
The defendant repeatedly made
false statements
on New York business records.
He also caused others
to make false statements
The defendant claimed
that he was paying Michael Cohen
for legal services performed in 2017.
This simply was not true.
And it was a false statement
that the defendant made month
after month in 2017
April May, June
and so on through the rest of the year.
For nine straight months,
the defendant held documents in his hand
containing this key lie
that he was paying Michael Cohen
for legal services performed in 2017,
and he personally signed checks
for payments to Michael Cohen
for each of these nine months.
In total
The grand jury found
there were 34 documents
with this critical false statement.
Why did Donald Trump
repeatedly make these false statements?
The evidence will show that he did so
to cover up
crimes relating to the 2016 election
Donald Trump executives at the publishing
company American Media Inc.
Mr.
Cohen and others agreed in 2015
to a catch and kill scheme.
That is a scheme to buy and suppress
negative information to help Mr.
Trump's chance of winning the election.
As part of this scheme.
Donald Trump and others
made three payments
to people
who claim to have negative information
about Mr. Trump
to make these payments.
They set up shell companies
and they made yet more
false statements,
including, for example,
in AMI American Media Inc's
business records,
one of the three people who they paid
to keep quiet
was a woman named Stormy Daniels
less than two weeks
before the presidential election.
Michael Cohen
wired $130,000 to Stormy Daniels lawyer.
That payment
was the high, damaging information
from the voting public
The participants scheme was illegal.
The scheme violated New York
election law,
which makes it a crime to conspire
to promote a candidacy by a lawful means.
The $130,000 wire payment
exceeded
the federal campaign contribution cap,
and the false statements in its books
violated New York law.
That is why Mr.
Trump made false statements
about his payments to Mr. Cohen.
He could not simply say
that the payments were a reimbursement
for Mr.
Cohen's payments
to Sandy to Stormy Daniels.
To do so.
To make
that true statement
would have been to omit a crime.
So instead, Mr.
Trump said that he was paying Mr.
Cohen
for fictitious legal services in 2017
to cover up actual crime,
committed the prior year.
And in order to get Michael Cohen
his money back,
they planned one last false statement
in order to complete the scheme.
They plan to mischaracterize
the repayments to Mr.
Cohen as income to the New York State
tax authorities.
The conduct I just described
and that which was charged by the grand
jury is felony criminal conduct in New
York State.
True and accurate
business records are important
everywhere. To be sure,
they are all the more important
in Manhattan,
the financial center of the world.
That is why we have a history
in the Manhattan DA's office
of vigorously
enforcing white collar crime
My office,
including the talented prosecutors
you saw at arraignment
earlier today, has charged
hundreds of felony
falsifying business records
This charge,
it can be
said, is the bread and butter
of our white collar work.
And fraud presents itself
at all different forms here in Manhattan.
We have charged falsifying
business records
for those who violated
federal bank secrecy laws.
We have charged
falsifying business records
for those who were seeking to cover up
sex crimes.
And we have brought this charge for those
who committed tax violations.
At its core.
This case today is one with allegations
like so many of our white collar cases,
allegations that someone lie again
and again to protect their interests
and evade the laws
to which we are all held accountable
as this office is done
time and time again.
We today uphold our solemn responsibility
to ensure
that everyone stands equal
before the law.
No amount of money
and no amount of power
changes that enduring American principle.
I'll take questions right now.
We're going to take
a limited number of questions
here to follow the order
I will call on you again.
You
say, why now?
Some argue that this is a political move.
You're not going to be appointed person
ended up in a thorough
and the best negations we're going to do
at the Manhattan
District Attorney's Office.
I've been doing this for 24 years,
and I'm no stranger
to rigorous, complex investigations.
I've run cases already having
now conducted a rigorous,
thorough investigation.
The case was ready to be brought,
and it was brought by me again.
That's right.
That confirms that
there were 34 false business
records
and they would not conceal another crime.
But it is not say what those crimes were.
We are assuming
that they might be election related
I'm wondering
if you can specify
what was your office building. Right.
So let me
let me say as an initial matter,
that the indictment doesn't specify that
because the law
does not so require
in my remarks,
I mentioned a couple of laws,
which I will highlight again now.
The first is New York state election law,
which makes it a crime to conspire
to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.
I further
indicated a number
of unlawful means,
including more
additional false statements,
including statements
that were planned to be
made to tax authorities
I also noted the federal election
law cap
on contribution contribution limits.
But why weren't there?
Those are part for the prize.
Well,
we I'm not going to go
into our deliberate process
on what was brought.
The charges that were brought
were the ones that were brought.
The evidence in the law
is the basis for those decisions.
Right.
And
you had expressed a year ago
that you had some reservations
about the readiness.
You talked about
the kind of
what were some of the questions
in your mind that needed to be answered
in order
to bring a case of this magnitude?
I'm not going to go chapter
and verse into any thinking.
What I will say is
I believe the time period
you're talking about.
I've been in office
for a couple of months.
The investigation in my view,
was not concluded into the conduct
in particular,
that that is the basis
for the charges today.
Since that time, we've had more evidence
made available
to the office
and opportunity
to meet with additional witnesses.
So as I said earlier,
I've been doing this for 24 years.
I don't bring cases prior to a thorough
and rigorous investigation.
Now, having done so,
the case has been brought
this red dirt.
Hey, could NBC News.
Your predecessor took a hard
look at this case
and decided not to charge it.
Federal prosecutors took a hard
look at this case
and decided not to charge it.
Do you believe you have new evidence
that led you to decide to charge this
or why now?
Well, as I
as I just mentioned,
we have
had available to the office
additional evidence
that was not in the office's possession
prior to my time here.
And as to
your part of your question
about the federal,
we have a distinct and strong,
I would say, profound
independent interests in New York State.
This is the business
capital of the world.
We regularly
do cases involving
false business statements,
but the bedrock of fact, the basis for
business integrity
and a well-functioning business
marketplace is true
and accurate recordkeeping.
That's the charge that brought here
false by New York State business records.
Correct.
Thank you for that.
I'm going to read back
from your statement past
the purchase sentence
since I miscarried this paragraph
for tax purposes
attributed to your payments scheme
you were predicting was one of the
mischaracterized payments
for tax purposes.
I'm not going to go beyond
the plain language statement
of fact that I think speaks for itself.
He wrote these comments
on the strength of the evidence that
is currently on
to offer those actions that are charged
so that the charge is falsifying
business records.
The charge requires, as I
as I specify,
criminal conduct that was concealed.
One of the concealed crimes we allege is
New York state election law.
I went through in our statement of facts.
I think many of you have in front of you,
you know, goes through things including,
you know,
text messages, emails,
contemporaneous phone records,
multiple witnesses.
All of that
will be,
as you saw in the fall,
borne out in a public courtroom
in downtown Manhattan.
The last question is going to be
due to the money given to Stormy Daniels,
the release from your office
also mentions another woman, Karen
McDougal, as well as in.
Do you comment on
how those things related to the charges
you've brought forward
to the case overall?
It's it's said
I'm glad you put your
your finger on that
because it's not just about
one payment.
It is 34 business records,
34 false statements and business records
and we're concealing criminal conduct.
And the earlier question
about New York State election law,
when I talked about conspiracy
to promote a candidacy by unlawful means,
those are lawful means, we allege include
the conduct,
you know, set forth
in the statement of facts, which is,
you know,
additional false statements
separate apart
from the charge ones in my
documents,
planned false statements,
the taxing authorities.
It is not just that
11 $130,000 wire payment.
Thanks so much.