Mar. 21, 2023: Unpacking Alvin Bragg's case against Trump

On the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, as pro-Trump rioters were ransacking the Capitol in Washington, prosecutors in Manhattan gathered on Zoom to discuss Donald Trump's bookkeeping practices. 

More than two years later, while state and federal criminal investigations into Trump’s culpability for the events of Jan. 6 continue, it is the Manhattan probe that is set to produce the first Trump indictment — as soon as this week.

While we don’t know for sure what crime — or crimes — that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg will charge Trump with, the weight of available evidence suggests Trump will be charged with violating a New York state law against falsifying business records. 

Specifically, Bragg is apparently preparing to argue that Trump created fictitious records during the scheme to pay off Stormy Daniels in October 2016 after she threatened to expose their alleged affair.

The return of the hush money caper to the white-hot center of American politics has a lot of people scratching their heads and puzzling over some basic questions: Of all the Trump scandals, why is this the one that’s going to get him arrested? Didn’t authorities already rule out any culpability for Trump in that case? And isn’t Bragg’s legal theory hopelessly flawed?

To understand how one of the OG Trump scandals returned from the dead to ensnare Trump seven years after Daniels got her $130,000, we need to review the case’s complicated history.

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Raghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.
Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.