Stephanie A. Gregory Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, is an American pornographic film actress, director and former stripper. She has won many industry awards and is a member of the NightMoves Hall of Fame, AVN Hall of Fame and XRCO Hall of Fame. In 2009, a recruitment effort led her to consider challenging incumbent David Vitter in the 2010 Senate election in her native Louisiana.
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993. Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.
Lanny Jesse Davis is an American political operative, lawyer, consultant, lobbyist, author, and television commentator. He is the co-founder and partner of the law firm of Davis Goldberg & Galper PLLC, and co-founder and partner of the public relations firm Trident DMG. From 1996 to 1998, he served as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton, and was a spokesperson for the President and the White House on matters concerning campaign-finance investigations and other legal issues.
David Jay Pecker is an American publishing executive and businessman, who was the CEO of American Media until August 2020. He was the publisher of Men's Fitness, Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Fit Pregnancy, Shape and Star. He was also the publisher of National Enquirer, Sun, Weekly World News, and Globe.
William Henry Pauley III was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was noted for issuing the opinion in ACLU v. Clapper in 2013 concerning the legality of the National Security Agency's bulk collection of metadata, as well as sentencing Michael Cohen to three years in prison in 2018.
Joseph Tacopina is an American lawyer, media personality, and professional sports executive. He has served as a personal attorney for former U.S. president Donald Trump, representing him in a New York criminal case involving payments made to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, and in a civil case in which Trump was not found liable for the rape claim but liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll.
Michael Dean Cohen is an American and disbarred former lawyer, who served as an attorney for former United States president Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018. Cohen served as vice president of the Trump Organization and personal counsel to Trump, often being described as his fixer. Cohen served as co-president of Trump Entertainment and was a board member of the Eric Trump Foundation, a children's health charity. From 2017 to 2018, Cohen was deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
From the 1970s until he was elected president in 2016, Donald Trump and his businesses were involved in over 4,000 legal cases in United States federal and state courts, including battles with casino patrons, million-dollar real estate lawsuits, personal defamation lawsuits, and over 100 business tax disputes. He has also been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault, with one accusation resulting in him being held civilly liable.
Allen Howard Weisselberg is an American businessman who was convicted of tax evasion in connection with his role as former chief financial officer (CFO) of the Trump Organization. Weisselberg served as a co-trustee of a trust set up in 2017 by Donald Trump before Trump's inauguration as president of the United States. In 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 criminal charges including grand larceny, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. In January 2023, he began serving a five-month jail sentence and was released the following April. A ruling which was handed down in February 2024 also resulted in Weisselberg being permanently banned from serving in financial control function of any New York corporation or business, and also banned him from being serving as a director or officer for any New York corporation or business for three years. In 2024, he pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced to another five months in prison.
Charles John Harder is an American lawyer at the law firm Harder LLP based in Los Angeles, California.
Michael John Avenatti is an American former attorney and convicted felon, currently incarcerated in federal prison at FCI Terminal Island. He is best known for his legal representation of adult film actress Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against then U.S. President Donald Trump, and his multiple convictions for attempting to extort sports apparel company Nike and defrauding and embezzling settlement money from a series of other clients. Avenatti has appeared extensively on television and in print as a legal and political commentator, and as a representative for prominent clients.
The Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal involves allegations of an affair between Donald Trump and porn star Stormy Daniels, alleged "hush money" payments by Trump to Daniels to buy her silence during Trump's 2016 campaign for US presidency, and allegations Trump falsified business records to further bury the story in the run-up to the election. Regarding the allegations of falsifying business records, Trump has been indicted for making these alleged fabrications to cover up other alleged crimes. He is being criminally prosecuted in New York, in the first criminal trial of a former US president.
Keith M. Davidson is an attorney in Beverly Hills, California. Davidson has represented clients who sought nondisclosure agreement settlements from notable individuals, including Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen, and Hulk Hogan. He has also managed professional boxers Manny Pacquiao and James Toney.
The 2017-2019 Special Counsel investigation involved multiple legal teams, specifically the attorneys, supervised by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, taking part in the investigation; the team representing President Trump in his personal capacity; and the team representing the White House as an institution separate from the President.
Full Disclosure is a memoir written by Stormy Daniels with Kevin Carr O'Leary. It was published on October 2, 2018, by St. Martin's Press.
The Special Counsel investigation was a United States law enforcement and counterintelligence investigation of the Russian government's efforts to interfere in United States politics and any possible involvement by members of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. It was primarily focused on the 2016 presidential election.
Vinoo Varghese is an American lawyer who has defended high-profile clients in New York State and federal courts around the country. He provides legal commentary in print and on television. He has appeared on programs such as Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Ingraham Angle, Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, and CBS This Morning. A former prosecutor, Varghese is an outspoken critic of the nearly unlimited power of prosecutors. On March 21, 2020, the New York Daily News published an op-ed that Varghese wrote blasting Governor Andrew Cuomo's decision not to include criminal defense lawyers as "essential" in Cuomo's COVID-19 shutdown order. The next day, criminal defense lawyers were deemed "essential." On May 29, 2020, Varghese wrote an op-ed about the Manhattan DA engaging in selective prosecution by prosecuting Yasmin Seweid in 2016 for a false criminal report, but not Amy Cooper in the Central Park “Karen” incident. Two weeks after the publication of this op-ed, then District Attorney Cy Vance, ordered her arrest.
Solomon Louis Wisenberg is an American lawyer, legal analyst, and former Chief of the Financial Institution Fraud Unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas. From 1997 to 1999, he served as Associate and Deputy Independent Counsel under Kenneth W. Starr during the Whitewater Investigation & Clinton-Lewinsky Investigations. Wisenberg was a frequent commentator on legal issues related to the investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that resulted in a finding of insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
Two related investigations by New York State and City officials were opened by 2020 to determine whether the Trump Organization has committed financial fraud. One of these is a criminal case being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney (DA) and the other is a civil case being conducted by the New York State Attorney General (AG). The DA's case has led to two of the organization's subsidiary companies being found guilty of 17 charges including tax fraud and the indictment of Donald Trump, while the AG has succeeded in imposing an independent monitor to prevent future fraud by the organization.
The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump is a current criminal trial against Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States. Trump faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records relating to payments made to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about an earlier alleged affair between them. Trump is accused of falsifying these business records with the intent to violate federal campaign finance limits, unlawfully influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and commit tax fraud. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if Trump is convicted on five or more counts. Trump is the first U.S. president to be indicted.
