Inside the Stormy Daniels hush money case that led to Trump’s arrest
How the story unfolded: John Bowden on the key moments in a seven-year saga that has led to Trump’s indictment and trial on criminal charges
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Former President Donald Trump has been out of office for more than three years, and is itching to get back in the White House.
But one figure from his first run for president has refused to go away, and has ended up being a major headache for him as he pursues a third White House bid.
We’re talking, of course, about adult film star Stormy Daniels, also known by her real name, Stephanie Clifford. Ms Daniels made headlines in 2018 when she came forward with an allegation that she had been in a romantic extramarital relationship with the president in 2006, and had been threatened and later bribed to keep her mouth shut.
At the time, the basis of her claim took on an interesting angle thanks to a lawsuit she filed against then-President Donald Trump. Alleging that the hush agreement was invalid because Mr Trump had not signed it, she sued him and triggered what would become a years-long investigation into whether the scheme was legal at all points.
On 30 March 2023, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Mr Trump on 34 charges of falsifying business records to conceal the hush money payments and other alleged election schemes.
On 4 April 2023 he appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court for his arraignment, where he pled not guilty to all charges. After another year of legal wrangling, the trial will finally begin with jury selection on 15 April 2024.
With this historic moment, let’s go back to the beginning, and look at the major milestones of the Trump-Stormy relationship:
October 2016: Daniels is contacted by reporters
The first journalists to latch on to the Stormy Daniels story did so long before it ever came out. It’s still unclear exactly how many news outlets contacted Ms Daniels prior to the 2016 election, but at least one, Fox News, is known to have killed a story on the supposed affair with just days to go in the presidential race. Because none of the stories ever made it to print, Ms Daniels escapes broader public notice.
January 2018: Daniels comes forward
More than a year later, the story finally makes it to print in a flurry of media activity. The Wall Street Journal reveals the initial story, detailing the payment made by Trump fixer Michael Cohen. He admits to the payment on 14 January, before denying that the affair itself occurred.
Moving along, CNN breaks the story about Fox killing its pre-election article on the affair on 16 January. A day later, a 2011 interview with InTouch Weekly in which Ms Daniels repeats the same allegations to the letter is revealed by the magazine, which adds to the shocking news that its editors had Ms Daniels take and pass a polygraph test.
The cat is now officially out of the bag.
March 2018: Cohen escalates, Avenatti appears, and the White House spins
Two months later and Donald Trump’s fixer is still fighting on his behalf, this time by filing an arbitration case against Ms Daniels and alleging that she violated her nondisclosure agreement. He threatens her with legal penalties for speaking about the affair further.
March also marked the first appearance of one of the strangest characters to be elevated by this scandal: Attorney Michael Avenatti, the brash, combative lawyer who frequently wowed cable news hosts with his fiery statements and fondness for media appearances; Mr Avenatti would eventually go on to be sued by Ms Daniels for cheating her out of money and sentenced to prison for stealing millions from his clients, but not before being raised to near-diety status by excited liberal pundits.
News coverage of the Stormy Daniels case explodes in interest with the addition of Mr Avenatti. 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.
The White House also addresses the news for the first time, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denying at a press conference that Mr Trump had paid Ms Daniels any money. The issue of whether Mr Trump reimbursed his attorney for the hush payment remains open.
April 2018: Cohen’s office is raided by the FBI
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. Mr Mueller’s team eventually gets Cohen to plead guilty to lying to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow; Mr Cohen says he was directed to lie by the president.
Mr Trump also addressed the case personally for the first time, denying knowledge of the $130,000 payment Cohen made to Ms Daniels purportedly on his behalf.
At the time, it is thought that federal prosecutors had begun a separate investigation into the Daniels matter. That is later confirmed.
May 2018: Rudy Giuliani screws things up
Joining the president’s legal team, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani would go on to have a years-long legal relationship with Mr Trump that resulted in the aging politician causing far more harm than good.
Years before his bumbling in Ukraine would be seen as a cause for the Democrats’ first impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump, Mr Giuliani would throw a hand grenade into the legal defences of both his boss and former colleague, Cohen, by admitting that Mr Trump himself knew of the payments.
Speaking on Fox News, in a shocking interview with a bemused Sean Hannity, Mr Giuliani specified that not only the president "did know the general arrangement", he added that the president had even reimbursed Cohen with money he characterised as “funneled” through a law firm. Mr Trump denies this, telling reporters, "He started yesterday. He’ll get his facts straight."
August 2018: Michael Cohen surrenders to FBI
Michael Cohen becomes the first person to face the legal music over the Daniels affair in August. He pleads guilty to making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution as well as a contribution that exceeded federal giving limits.
In his guilty plea, the extent of Mr Trump’s support for his ex-attorney is revealed: Cohen claims that the Trump Organization paid him back for his work making Ms Daniels go away to the tune of $420,000.
Mr Trump addresses that finding later in the month, claiming that the funds came from his personal account and contradicting his previous claim that he did not know about the deal.
October 2018: Daniels loses her defamation suit
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. A judge didn’t buy this, and tossed out her suit with prejudice. She is ordered to pay attorney and court fees for the president.
December 2018: Cohen sentencing memorandum reveals feds believe Trump committed a crime
A sentencing memo unveiled in the ongoing case against Cohen is made public in December. In it, prosecutors implicate Mr Trump in directing Cohen to commit crimes, which the president bizarrely tweets “clears” him from legal liability. Cohen receives a three-year sentence.
July 2019: The DOJ closes an investigation into the hush payments
Without explanation for why federal prosecutors do not believe a case can be brought against the sitting president (though the office has a decades-old nonbinding policy against doing so), the investigation into the hush payments is closed by the DoJ in July of 2019.
It continues, however, at the state level. Manhattan prosecutors continue their work through the end of the Trump presidency.
August 2020: Stormy Daniels loses her appeal
A year later, Ms Daniels’s final legal avenue is exhausted. 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. Her defeat is really settled with a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court; a Hail Mary that goes nowhere and ends in February 2021.
May 2021: FEC drops Stormy Daniels inquiry after split vote
The board of the Federal Election Commission votes 2-2 and declines to pursue a case against the Trump campaign for violating federal law with the Daniels payment. At least two commissioners believe that there is evidence that the Trump campaign knowingly committed crimes.
November 2022: Alvin Bragg smells blood in the water
The matter remains quiet for another year. 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. Mr Bragg took office in January 2021, the same month that Mr Trump left office.
January 2023: Michael Cohen meets with Bragg as investigation heats up
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. Cohen, fresh out of prison, begins what would become a series of meetings with the DA’s team as a grand jury is impanelled with the beginning of the new year.
March 2023: Bragg’s team signals that charges are near
As March rolls around, the seriousness of Mr Bragg’s investigation becomes clear. The New York Times cites four sources connected to the investigation and reports that Mr Trump has been invited to speak to the grand jury; the paper reports that such is the case almost exclusively when an indictment or indictments are close.
Cohen appears before the grand jury, and Mr Trump is invited to provide testimony as well. It’s a clear signal that the NYC prosecutor is considering charges against Mr Trump, who would become the first US president to face criminal charges in the nation’s history.
On 18 March, Mr Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday 21 March in a furious all-caps Truth Social post.
“NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”.
But Tuesday came and went with no indictment – as the former president’s calls for protests also fell flat.
The grand jury’s proceedings were called off on Wednesday 22 March and pushed back again the following day, delaying the eventual indictment. Stormy Daniels celebrated the news of an impending indictment in a series of tweets - beginning immediately after Mr Trump’s all-caps outburst.
“I only respond when he posts about me or talks about me on TV...and only a fraction of that. He probably watches my movies on repeat which may be why he has so many typos. (Slippery fingers from lube and KFC),” she wrote.
Ms Daniels also responded to an account that tagged her in a meme featuring her and Mr Trump together and asked: “This you?”
“It is!” she said. “Giving him a ride straight to jail. See how sweet I am?”
In a further exchange, another user commented: “Trump isn’t getting arrested sweetly [sic].”
Ms Daniels replied: “So he lied? Again? Because that’s what Tiny said on his own social media post.”
She took to Twitter again on Tuesday to share a series of posts mocking the former president.
“Sooo...tiny paid me to frame himself? You sound even dumber than he does during his illiterate ramblings. And I won’t walk, I’ll dance down the street when he is “selected” to go to jail,” she wrote.
30 March 2023: Donald Trump is indicted
On 30 March, the Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Mr Trump on criminal charges over the hush money payments – making Mr Trump the first current or former president to ever face criminal charges in the history of the US.
It is currently unclear what the charges are.
4 April 2023: Trump is arrested and arraigned
Mr Trump appeared in a Manhattan court for his arraignment on Tuesday 4 April.
The charges were also unsealed: 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal what prosecutors described as an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by suppressing negative stories about him.
“From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” read the prosecution’s statement of facts.
“In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterised, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.”
Mr Bragg added: “We cannot and will not normalise serious criminal conduct.”
As part of the booking process, his fingerprints and personal details were recorded. However, he was not placed in handcuffs and a mugshot was not expected taken.
After the arraignment, he returned to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida to givea prime-time televised address where he railed against the charges, Mr Bragg and Judge Merchan – despite the judge warning him to stop making threatening posts on social media that could inflame tensions or incite violence just hours earlier.
8 May 2023: Trump appears virtually for protective order hearing
Mr Trump appeared virtually in Manhattan criminal court on 23 May for the first time since he was charged so Judge Merchan could disclose terms of a protective order that prohibits the former president from publicly discussing evidence in the case after prosecutors with the New York District Attorney’s office share information with Mr Trump’s legal team in the case.
Judge Merchan also announced an initial trial date of 25 March 2024 causing the former president to grow agitated, waves his arms around, shake his head and then fold his arms in disapproval.
2 June 2023: Trump attorneys want judge to step aside
Mr Trump’s attorneys ask Judge Merchan to step aside, citing his daughter's ties to a Democratic organization. They argue he cannot be impartial.
His daughter is an executive at Authentic Campaigns, a consulting firm that worked on President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign.
19 July 2023: Judge rejects attempt to move case to federal court
Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejects Mr Trump's request to move his hush-money criminal case into federal court.
The judge wrote: “Trump has failed to show that the conduct charged by the Indictment is for or relating to any act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a President.”
5 October 2023: Trump asks for all charges to be dismissed
Mr Trump asks a New York judge to dismiss all of the charges in the hush money case.
“President Trump cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts,” his defence attorney Todd Blanche says in the motion, which calls the case a “discombobulated package of politically motivated charges”.
15 February 2024: Trump motion to dismiss denied
Back at the courthouse, with Mr Trump in attendance, Judge Merchan rejects his motion to dismiss the case and rejects arguments from the defence that the trial should be delayed because of his 2024 campaign for the presidency.
26 February 2024: DA asks for limit gag order of Trump
DA Bragg asks Judge Merchan for a limited gag order to stop Mr Trump from making public statements about witnesses, jurors, court staff and prosecutors other than himself.
He cites the former president’s “longstanding and perhaps singular history” of attacking his enemies. Mr Trump’s lawyers ask the judge to deny the request in early March.
6 March 2024: DA’s case called ‘deluded fantasy’
Mr Trump’s attorneys accuse DA Bragg of pursuing a “deluded fantasy” case against the former president by connecting the payment to Ms Daniels with an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
7 March 2024: Jury identifying information to be limited
Judge Merchan agrees with the DA’s request to limit the disclosure of names and other information about jurors given the “likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of juror(s)”.
11 March 2024: Defence asks for delay until Scotus rules on immunity
Judge Merchan pushes back at a request from the defence team to delay the start of the trial until after the Supreme Court has ruled on Mr Trump’s presidential immunity argument.
He tells them to seek permission before filing further motions.
12 March 2024: Trump did not intend to break law, defence will argue
Mr Trump’s attorneys say they will argue that the former president did not intend to break the law because he was aware of the involvement of various lawyers.
14 March 2024: DA OK with delay
DA Bragg says the prosecution will accept a 30-day delay in the trial because of newly disclosed evidence from the US Attorney’s office.
18 March 2024: Stormy, Cohen, Access Hollywood can be used as evidence
Judge Merchan rules against Mr Trump’s attempts to exclude testimony from Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen and other key witnesses, as well as evidence related to the Access Hollywood tape that nearly derailed his 2016 campaign — though the tape cannot be played as evidence.
25 March 2024: Trial date set
Judge Merchan orders jury selection to begin on 15 April rejecting a further bid by Mr Trump’s team to delay the case further.
26 March 2024: Limited gag order imposed
Judge Merchan grants the DA's request for a limited gag order on Mr Trump that prevents him from making public statements about witnesses, prospective jurors, members of the court staff and their families other than the judge, and lawyers in the case, with the exception of Mr Bragg.
The gag order is then expanded on 1 April to cover the family members of the judge and DA after Mr Trump continues to attack Judge Merchan’s daughter on Truth Social.
Mr Trump’s former aide Hope Hicks is believed to be on the witness list.
2 April 2024: Defence asks judge to recuse himself (again)
Mr Trump’s defence team again asks Judge Merchan to recuse himself from the case, seven months after he last declined to do so.
3 April 2024: No presidential immunity
Judge Merchan rules that there are no grounds for presidential immunity in the case, partly because Mr Trump didn’t invoke the argument in a timely fashion.
8 April 2024: Appeals judge rejects delay (part 1)
Appeals court judge Lizbeth Gonzalez denies Mr Trump’s attempt to delay the upcoming trial on the grounds that pre-trial publicity has made finding an impartial jury impossible.
Judge Merchan releases the jury questionnaire.
9 April 2024: Appeal judge rejects delay (part 2)
Appeals court judge Cynthia Kern denies a request to delay the trial while they wait for the full appeal panel to rule on whether to relax the gag order on Mr Trump.
10 April 2024: Appeals judge rejects delay (part 3)
Appeals court judge Ellen Gesmer denies Mr Trump’s request to delay the upcoming trial while they wait for an appeals panel to rule on his challenge to Judge Merchan’s ruling on presidential immunity and his refusal to recuse himself.
This story was updated on Friday 12 April 2024 to reflect the new information
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