Trump’s hush money case seems like small potatoes. It’s not

Amazingly, we are still hearing that the indictments of Donald Trump in Manhattan are the least important of the four sets of charges against the former president. Okay, in some ways they are. They don’t involve the insurrection, the attempt to steal the 2020 election or the theft of hundreds of classified documents.

But in other key ways, the Manhattan trial starting April 15 is the most important: Trump’s actions may have altered the outcome of the 2016 election; it may be the only trial reaching completion before November; these offenses cannot be pardoned by Trump or another Republican president; and a conviction in Manhattan could have a substantial impact on the 2024 election.

This case is not, at its core, about hush money payments to an adult film actress. Those are the elemental facts, but they are not the essence of the charges. The Manhattan indictments revolve around Trump’s effort to keep the salacious story from damaging his electoral chances in the 2016 campaign’s final days, in violation of tax and campaign finance laws.

Let’s review. In October 2016, Trump was reeling from the release of the devastating “Access Hollywood” tape, where he boasted about grabbing women between their legs because, in his words, “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” The country was outraged. His support was crumbling. Key Republican elected officials announced they wouldn’t support him. 

But on the very same day the video became public, WikiLeaks released a huge tranche of emails connected to Hillary Clinton. The country’s attention was drawn away from the Trump tape as the press focused relentlessly on the Clinton team emails, the disclosure of which was a central part of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Still, the anger over the “Access Hollywood” tape remained a potential threat to the Trump campaign. All the while, Stephanie Clifford — aka Stormy Daniels — with whom Trump had an extramarital affair in 2006, had begun to feel threats to her safety and that of her child. “Going public, she came to believe, would protect her and her family,” wrote Olivia Nuzzi in a profile of Daniels. “At least if something tragic happened — a single-car crash, an ‘overdose,’ a gas-leak explosion — there would be a record of her accusations. There would be cause for suspicion.”

Daniels had intended to come forward and reveal her affair with Trump in the hope that publicity would serve as a means of protection. But instead of a highly public revelation, she accepted a $130,000 payment and agreed to remain silent in the belief that it would protect her family. 

The money was wired to Daniels’s attorney on Oct. 27 and the non-disclosure agreement was signed the next day — the same day that FBI Director James Comey wrote his second letter about Hillary Clinton’s emails, which had such devastating consequences for her campaign.

Of course we’ll never know, but given that the election was less than two weeks away and people still recalled what Trump said about assaulting women, another display of infidelity — this time with a porn star mere months after his son Barron was born — might have pushed enough voters over to Clinton to have changed the election result.

So these payments weren’t just an effort to keep an affair quiet, they were designed to keep negative information out of the press in the few days before the election. When Trump conspired with Michael Cohen to cook the books, violate the New York tax code and break campaign finance laws, the bookkeeping misdemeanors became felony charges under New York law.

The Manhattan indictments are also critically important because they may be the only ones going ahead before the election. The classified documents case in Florida has been delayed by a Trump-appointed judge. The charges in Georgia have been slowed by a relationship between District Attorney Fani Willis and a now-former member of the prosecutorial team. And the main federal indictments about the attempted theft of the election are on hold as the Supreme Court considers Trump’s expansive claims of presidential immunity.

If Trump is convicted in this case before the election, he or another Republican president will not be able to pardon him. The Manhattan indictments are state charges, and the presidential pardon power does not reach them. Moreover, regardless of what happens in the election or the three other criminal cases, a conviction in New York would meet the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment.

Finally, the indictments in Manhattan are significant because sizable numbers of Americans, including Trump supporters, say they will not vote for him if he is convicted of a crime. Since these charges look like the only chance of a conviction before November, they could potentially lose Trump enough support to reelect Biden.

Yes, the news media has been rightfully consumed with the Supreme Court review of the question of criminal immunity for Trump, the oddly public hearings about Fani Willis’s relationship and the New York business fraud case. But the preliminaries end and the real action starts on April 15, when the Manhattan trial begins.

Even though the case has been brushed aside repeatedly by commentators, it is all about Trump’s first attempt to illegally interfere with and potentially steal an election. The country should pay much closer attention, because a conviction in Manhattan could change the course of this fall’s balloting and, potentially, the future of our nation.

Jason Steinbaum is president of the Chesterbrook Group and is an adjunct professor at the American University School of Public Affairs. He worked on Capitol Hill for more than 30 years.