Litigation across the ocean! Prosecutors have accused Donald Trump of outright election fraud

The prosecution in the case against Donald Trump for hush money accuses the former president of criminal conspiracy and covering up a sex scandal before the 2016 presidential election, but the prosecution is trying to "raise the bar". Prosecutors tried to qualify Trump's actions as "election fraud," the BBC writes.

"This was, pure and simple, election fraud," one of the prosecutors told jurors during opening statements at the historic trial in New York.

In presenting the arguments of the defense, Trump's lawyer points out that his client has not committed any crimes and that it is not illegal to try to influence the election.

"He is innocent," he adds.

Trump is accused of trying to cover up a $130,000 (BGN 240,148) payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before he won the race for the White House in 2016.

He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business documents and denies having an alleged sexual relationship with Ms. Daniels.

At the start of the second week of the criminal trial in Manhattan - the first in US history against a president - each side laid out the arguments they will present to the jury. The first witness, tabloid publisher David Packer, also took the floor briefly and will continue his evidence on Tuesday (April 23).

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo alleged that Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer and confidant, worked with Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Alan Weiselberg to "compile accounting documents" at Trump's behest and to hide hush money payments central to the case.

Those payments were allegedly made by Cohen to Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in connection with her allegation that she had had sexual contact with the former president. Trump has since reimbursed his former lawyer, despite being accused of concealing the payments.

Prosecutors allege that the payment scheme with Ms. Daniels involved the falsification of three types of documents - invoices, accounting records and checks.

Donald Trump has stated in his business filings that these payments were "for legal services pursuant to a fee agreement" with Cohen - Colangelo declared to the jury.

"These were lies,", the prosecutor points out.

Most importantly, however, he claims that Trump was motivated to provide the bribe so that voters would not learn about the alleged meeting with Ms. Daniels.

Prosecutors argued that this cover-up should be considered election interference and constitutes a second offense, making the charge of falsifying business documents a more serious felony instead of a lesser-classified misdemeanor.

One piece of evidence they point to is the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged to TV host Billy Bush that he had tried to have sex with a married woman.

The judge allowed prosecutors to add a transcript of the video into evidence, but not the video itself. The key point for the district attorney's office is that it shows how Trump's political campaign panicked in 2016 when the Washington Post first reported the existence of the tape.