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A Siena College Research Institute poll released Monday, April 22, showed that 54 percent of respondents said the trial is “legitimate,” while 30 percent saw the prosecution as a meritless “witch hunt.”
Broken down by party, 77 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of independents called the proceedings a “legitimate trial to determine whether Trump is or is not guilty of criminal behavior.” Meanwhile, 66 percent of Republicans considered the trial a “witch hunt” meant to “interfere in this year’s presidential election.”
Earlier Report: New Details - Indictment Unsealed, 34 Felonies: The People Of NY Vs. Donald J. Trump
“A majority of New Yorkers, 60 percent – including 68 percent of Democrats, 57 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of independents – are paying a great deal or some attention to Trump’s ongoing trial,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said.
The Siena College poll was conducted between Monday, April 15 and Wednesday, April 17 with 806 registered New York voters. View the complete poll results here.
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 alleged “hush money” payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, as well as alleged "catch-and-kill" payments involving David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, made on Trump's behalf.
Prosecutors argue that Trump had an affair with Daniels and was attempting to hide the payment leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
According to the unsealed indictment, Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”
Between August 2015 and December 2017, Trump orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress it to “benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects,” prosecutors allege.
As part of that scheme, Trump directed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to wire the $130,000 to Daniels’ lawyer shortly before the election “to prevent her from publicizing a sexual encounter with the defendant,” according to prosecutors. Cohen reportedly paid through a shell corporation he set up and funded through a bank in Manhattan.
Investigators said Trump later reimbursed Cohen for the illegal payment through a series of monthly checks that were processed by the Trump Organization and disguised as payments for legal services.
“In truth, there was no retainer agreement, and (Cohen) was not being paid for legal services rendered in 2017,” the indictment says. “The Defendant caused his entities’ business records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct.”
Cohen pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution and was sentenced to three years in federal prison in December 2018.
Daniels has claimed that she slept with Trump in 2006, while he was married to his current wife and former first lady, Melania Trump. Mr. Trump has denied having a sexual relationship with Daniels and has denied any wrongdoing in the case.
On the first day of testimony Monday, prosecutors called Pecker, who explained that he had the final say on big celebrity stories, CNN reports. Pecker will resume his testimony on Tuesday, April 23.
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