What happened between Trump and former porn star Stormy Daniels, why was a criminal case filed?

Former US President Donald Trump will be prosecuted for allegations that he paid former porn star Stormy Daniels not to speak during the 2016 election campaign.

Daniels alleges that she had a sexual relationship with Trump and received $130,000 from Trump's lawyer so she wouldn't talk about it before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump, on the other hand, says the president has not had any sexual relations with Daniels since the allegations were made in 2018.

Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, was convicted in a lawsuit filed on many different charges after the allegations were made.

Stormy Daniels' revelations

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said in interviews with the media that she met Trump at a charity golf tournament in July 2006.

Daniels also says they made love once in Trump's hotel room in Lake Tahoe, a resort between California and Nevada. In the days when this claim was made, it was "vehemently" rejected by Trump's lawyer.

When the interviewer was asked if he wanted Trump not to tell anyone about that night, Daniels replied, "He didn't seem to care. He had an arrogant attitude."

Melania Trump, who was Trump's wife at the aforementioned date, had just given birth and did not go to the golf tournament.

Daniels said that in 2016, just days before the US Presidential Election, Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid him $130,000 not to talk about the relationship.

Explaining that he was also threatened legally and physically, Daniels added that he accepted this payment because he was worried about the safety of his family.

In 2011, she claimed that shortly after she agreed to interview Touch magazine about the alleged affair, a man she didn't know approached her and her daughter in a Las Vegas parking lot and said, "Leave Trump alone."

As Daniels told CBS television's 60 Minutes in 2018, the man looked at his daughter and said, "What a beautiful little girl she is. It would be a shame if something happened to her mother."

The statements he mentioned in the Touch magazine, which he agreed to give in 2011, were not published in full detail until 2018.

Before the show aired on CBS in 2018, a nylon company associated with lawyer Cohen threatened Daniels with $20 million in damages for violating the confidentiality or "agreement of silence" they had reached in 2016.

"But being able to defend myself is very important to me," Daniels said in statements on CBS, saying that by speaking on a national television channel, he risked a million-dollar lawsuit.

Is it a crime to pay someone to keep quiet in the US?

There is no legal obstacle to making a payment in return by having someone sign an agreement to keep their information confidential.

But because the payment was made only a month before the presidential election, Trump's opponents say the payment could be a violation of campaign rules.

In August 2018, Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to tax evasion and campaign violations. These allegations were related to payments made to Daniels and another woman who was allegedly involved with Trump.

Cohen first said that Trump had nothing to do with these payments, but later in his affidavit in court, he explained that Trump had instructed him to make these payments days before the 2016 election.

Cohen also said that the president later repaid the money to him.

Cohen, who admitted to being guilty, was convicted of several crimes and was sentenced to prison.

Trump admits to personally returning these non-illegal payments to his lawyer, but denies violating relations and campaign rules.

Why exactly was Trump sued?

Earlier this year, New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg formed a grand jury to examine whether there was enough evidence to prosecute Trump for the payment made to Daniels.

Grand juries are sometimes created by prosecutors to assess whether there is enough evidence to prosecute.

On Thursday, the grand jury voted sufficient legal ground to prosecute, paving the way for Trump to become the first ex-president in US history to have a criminal case brought against him.

In a message on social media platform Truth Social, Trump described the investigation as "a political witch hunt brought about by a corrupt, corrupt and instrumentalized judiciary."