A source with knowledge of the situation says that the Manhattan grand jury looking into former President Trump’s role in a 2016 hush-money payment is not likely to hear any new evidence this week.
The source says that the grand jury won’t meet on Wednesday and will instead meet on Thursday to talk about a different case.
NBC News was the first to report on the plans.
The grand jury has been hearing about a $130,000 “hush money” payment that Trump’s personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, gave to adult film star Stormy Daniels right before the 2016 election. Daniels was about to go public with a story about a sexual encounter she had with Trump 10 years earlier, which Trump denies.
In the past few weeks, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) has taken a number of steps that show prosecutors are getting close to making a final decision about whether or not to seek an indictment.
Most of the time, the jury gets together on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. While jurors are being chosen, they often hear about more than one case, and the schedule is always changing because the trial is going on behind closed doors.
David Pecker, who used to run the National Enquirer, was seen leaving the building where the grand jury meets on Monday.
Pecker is a key figure in the investigation. He bought the rights to embarrassing stories about Trump that he never intended to publish. This is called “catch and kill.” But according to reports, Pecker didn’t pay Daniels to keep her quiet. Instead, he told Cohen to set up the payment himself, which he did.
Outside legal experts say that Trump’s payment to Cohen could lead prosecutors to charge the former president with falsifying business records if they can prove that he didn’t have a good reason to think of it as a legal expense.
But for the charge to become a felony, prosecutors would also have to show that the misdemeanor violation of falsifying business records was related to a different crime.
After saying last week that he would be arrested, Trump has gone after Bragg more than once. The former president’s lawyers have said that he paid Cohen back legally with his own money.
