Melania Trump Avoids the Courtroom, but Is Said
to Share Her Husband’s Anger
Melania Trump has long referred to the hush-money case
involving Stormy Daniels as her husband’s problem, not hers. But she has
privately called the trial a “disgrace” that could threaten his campaign.
Katie
Rogers
By Katie
Rogers
Katie
Rogers is the author of a book on first ladies and covered the Trump White
House, including Melania Trump’s East Wing.
April 16, 2024
In January
2018, when she first saw reports that her husband had paid off a porn star,
Melania Trump was furious. She jetted off to Palm Beach, leaving the president
to languish in Washington. She eventually returned, only to take a separate car
to Donald J. Trump’s first State of the Union address.
As a
criminal trial against Mr. Trump opened on Monday, on charges that he had
falsified records to cover up that sex scandal involving Stormy Daniels, Mrs.
Trump did not appear. She has long privately referred to the case involving Ms.
Daniels as “his problem” and not hers.
But Mrs.
Trump, the former first lady, shares his view that the trial itself is unfair,
according to several people familiar with her thinking.
In private,
she has called the proceedings “a disgrace” tantamount to election
interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who
could not speak publicly out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship
with the Trumps.
She may
support her husband, but Mrs. Trump is bound to see headlines involving Mr.
Trump and Ms. Daniels that could reopen old wounds. On Monday, Justice Juan M.
Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, also said that Mrs. Trump could be
among the potential witnesses as the trial gets underway.
All of this
could put Mr. Trump on shaky ground with his wife, who has defended him in some
critical moments — including when he bragged on tape about grabbing women by
their genitals — and withheld her public support in others, like when she did
not appear alongside him as he locked up victories on Super Tuesday.
A historic
trial begins. Donald Trump, who faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business
records in the first degree to cover up a sex scandal, is on trial in
Manhattan. He is the first former U.S. president to be criminally prosecuted.
Here are answers to some key questions about the case:
What is
Trump accused of? The charges trace back to a $130,000 hush-money payment that
Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016
to suppress her story of a sexual liaison with Trump in 2006. While serving as
president, Trump reimbursed Cohen, and how he did so constituted fraud,
prosecutors say.
Why did
prosecutors cite other hush-money payments? Although the charges relate to the
payment to Daniels, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is expected
to highlight two other hush-money deals. Prosecutors say that the deals show
that Trump had orchestrated a wide-ranging scheme to influence the 2016
presidential election.
Who will
the key witnesses be? Cohen is expected to be a crucial witness for
prosecutors. Bragg is also expected to call David Pecker, the former publisher
of The National Enquirer, as well as Hope Hicks, a former Trump aide, to shed
light on the tumultuous period surrounding the payments. Trump said he plans to
testify in his own defense.
Who is the
judge? Juan Merchan, the judge, is a veteran of the bench known as a
no-nonsense, drama-averse jurist. During the trial, Justice Merchan will be in
charge of keeping order in the courtroom and ruling on objections made by
prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers. The jury will decide whether Trump is guilty.
What
happens if Trump is convicted? The charges against Trump are all Class E
felonies, the least severe felony category in New York. If convicted, Trump
faces a prison sentence of four years or less, or he could receive probation.
How is The
New York Times covering the trial? The Times will provide comprehensive
coverage of the trial, which is set to last six to eight weeks. Expect live
updates from the courtroom in Manhattan, daily takeaways, explainers and
analysis from our reporting team.
“At the end
of the day, she can make or break his candidacy,” said Stephanie Grisham, Mrs.
Trump’s former press secretary who resigned on Jan. 6, 2021, and went on to
write a memoir. “And at the end of the day, she could probably make or break
him.”
Some of the
more personally damaging details of Mr. Trump’s behavior may not come up in
court. On Monday, Justice Merchan barred some testimony related to the timing
of a reported affair between Mr. Trump and a former Playboy model, Karen
McDougal. The National Enquirer, which has longstanding ties to Mr. Trump,
bought the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story for $150,000 and then never published
it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”
Jurors may
hear about the relationship between Mr. Trump and Ms. McDougal, Justice Merchan
ruled — but not accounts that the affair continued while Mrs. Trump was
pregnant with their son, Barron. (If the court proceedings bring up Barron,
whose privacy his mother fiercely guards, Ms. Grisham said, Mrs. Trump is
likely to be “not happy” with her husband “all over again.”)
The trial
is nonetheless all but certain to examine a timeline that Mrs. Trump would
prefer not to revisit. Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels met at a 2006 celebrity golf
tournament, at a time when the Trumps had been married for a year and Mrs.
Trump had recently given birth to Barron.
Mr. Trump
has denied having a sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels. But prosecutors say that
when Ms. Daniels looked to sell her story a decade later, Mr. Trump directed
Michael D. Cohen, then his lawyer and fixer, to pay Ms. Daniels $130,000 to
keep quiet. The reports of a payoff blindsided Mrs. Trump, who responded to the
initial reports by getting out of town.
She
canceled a trip to Davos, Switzerland, with Mr. Trump, made an impromptu visit
to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and then she jetted off to Mar-a-Lago, the
Trumps’ beachside fortress in Palm Beach, Fla., where she spent part of her
trip relaxing at the spa. She eventually reappeared, only to take a separate
car to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address and appear on the arm of a male
military aide.
By now,
allies of the Trumps say, Mrs. Trump has lumped the trial into all of the other
legal problems her husband faces, and she is steelier than she was before.
Last month,
she appeared next to Mr. Trump to welcome Viktor Orban, the prime minister of
Hungary, during a visit to Mar-a-Lago. Weeks later, she voted alongside Mr.
Trump in Florida, where she responded to a question about whether she would be
campaigning more often with a cryptic “stay tuned.”
Supporters
have hailed her scheduled appearance at a fund-raising event for the Log Cabin
Republicans, a group of L.G.B.T. conservatives, as proof that Mrs. Trump is
prepared to be more engaged on the campaign trail.
The event,
scheduled for Saturday, will draw attendees who have paid at least $10,000 for
a chance to interact with Mrs. Trump, according to a person familiar with the
planning who was not authorized to detail it.
The event
will be set up like a cocktail reception, and Mrs. Trump is expected to deliver
remarks about her time as first lady and reiterate her support for her husband.
But there
is one catch: The event will not be held in a battleground state or at any
location on a traditional campaign trail. It will be held in a reception room
at Mar-a-Lago, steps from Mrs. Trump’s suite.
The Log
Cabin Republicans have been a source of income for Mrs. Trump before. According
to a financial disclosure last year, Mrs. Trump received a $250,000 payment
from the group in December 2022. Charles Moran, a representative of the group,
said in an email that Mrs. Trump was not taking a fee from the Log Cabin
Republicans for her appearance.
A
spokeswoman for Mrs. Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this
article, and neither did a representative for the Trump campaign.
Mrs.
Trump’s allies say that she will likely appear again as the campaign continues
— a sign, they say, that she realizes there is a real chance she could become
first lady again — but that she is likely to be selective with her time.
For now,
she is focused on Barron’s graduation from high school later this spring and
preparing him for college. Mr. Trump complained repeatedly on social media on
Monday that he might miss his son’s graduation because of the trial. Barron
attends a private school near Mar-a-Lago and is expected to graduate in May.
Mrs.
Trump’s allies say other personal issues could keep her from the campaign
trail. She is said to still be mourning the death of her mother, Amalija Knavs,
who died in January and was one of a small number of people in Mrs. Trump’s
world who had her absolute trust. Her sister, Ines Knauss, is another
confidante, but Ms. Knauss lives in New York City.
Another
person Mrs. Trump trusts is Kellyanne Conway, who served as counselor to Mr.
Trump in the White House; Mrs. Trump is pushing for Ms. Conway to return to Mr.
Trump’s orbit in a formal capacity, a development first reported by the news
site Puck. Ms. Conway, who was a confidante for both Mr. and Mrs. Trump when
they were in the White House, has said that Mr. Trump cares deeply about his
wife’s opinion — and, in some cases, he might even fear it.
“He listens
to many of us,” she told a congressional committee in 2022, “but he reserves
fear for one person, Melania Trump.”
Katie
Rogers is a White House correspondent. For much of the past decade, she has
focused on features about the presidency, the first family, and life in
Washington, in addition to covering a range of domestic and foreign policy
issues. She is the author of a book on first ladies. More
about Katie Rogers
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário