As everyone sits with the single-serve packet in the microwave and their finger hovering over the “popcorn” button, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg seems to be drawing out the expected grand jury indictment of Donald Trump for financial improprieties relating to using his company’s legal fund as cover to pay off non-disclosure agreements. But Bragg may not be delaying the seemingly inevitable for dramatic tension; he’s likely got other things bubbling up.
A short dive into Twitter uncovered a post by a user who claimed to be a freelance writer who had written a story for the National Enquirer about a doorman at Trump’s residence who claimed Trump had a child with a cleaning woman who worked in the building. The supposed writer claimed to have been paid for the story by AMI, the National Enquirer’s parent company, which promptly spiked the story. The writer’s claim can’t be confirmed, but the fact that the National Enquirer paid Dino Sajudin, a former doorman at Trump World Tower, $30,000 in December 2015 for exclusive rights to his story has been confirmed. No AMI publication ran a story on Sajudin’s claim prior to the 2016 election; the story didn’t break until 2018. And before you say December 2015 wasn’t really the presidential election season, Trump announced in June 2015, and Trump participated in five primary debates in 2015.
If Bragg is looking into Stormy Daniels’ non-disclosure agreement for using Trump Organization funds to pay for a personal and political cost for Donald Trump’s personal advantage, Bragg is likely also looking into all payoffs made with Trump Org funds. This would include the payoff to Sajudin–and likely many others who were paid to keep Trump’s dirty little secrets such as Karen McDougal.
Michael Cohen, AMI president David Pecker, and Trump attorney Robert Costello would all know, in whole or in part, how frequently Trump did this. And Costello reportedly testified before the grand jury, likely to claim Trump’s action were typical, not criminal. (Indeed, Tucker Carlson made this argument last week.) If Costello made the claim, he would have to list other times Trump paid off people to stay silent to prove his point–and Costello would have to do so under oath using the books of the Trump Organization to support his claim. Each one of those payoffs is a potential case, which Pecker–called back to the grand jury after Costello’s testimony–could corroborate.