Who are the key players in the Trump court case of the decade - as GOP presidential frontrunner is set to become the first ever ex president to go on criminal trial a look at the people who could help to turn the case

Ex-president Donald Trump's criminal 'hush money' trial begins today with jury selection in a New York courtroom for what the GOP frontrunner called a 'communist show trial' at a rally in Pennsylvania. 

Trump is accused of burying stories about his alleged extramarital affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign through $130,000 in hush money. 

The trial  limit Trump's availability on the campaign trail, though he is expected to speak to the media after court often and has for months fundraised and campaigned on the felony charges he faces. 

In addition, Trump is subject to a gag order in the case meaning he is not allowed to make public statements about witnesses, ie Daniels or his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, or prosecutors, court staff or the family members. 

Trump could face fines or jail time if he violates the order. Prosecutors sought the order because they said Trump had a long history of verbally attacking people involved in legal proceedings.

The first every criminal trial of a former president will see an incredible array of witnesses, lawyers and prosecutors take center stage in Manhattan.

Stormy Daniels 

Stormy Daniels aka Stephanie Clifford, pictured in 2023, says she had a brief sexual liaison with Trump in 2006

Stormy Daniels is easily the most recognizable person involved in this case. 

A porn actor who's also had bit parts in mainstream films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid the money in the final weeks of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign after her representative said she was willing to make on-the-record statements to the National Enquirer or on television confirming a sexual encounter with Trump. 

Daniels attempted to capitalize on her newfound notoriety after news of the payment became public, embarking on a nationwide strip club tour in 2018. 

During a stop in Columbus, Ohio, Daniels was arrested on suspicion of inappropriately touching an undercover officer, but the charges were dropped hours later.

Her former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is serving 11 years in prison for extortion and fraud, including a conviction for stealing $297,000 in proceeds from Daniels' 2018 book, Full Disclosure.  

Michael Cohen

Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pictured in 2023, Cohen will be a key witness in the case 

A lawyer by training, Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017, serving as Trump's fixer. He once proudly proclaimed he'd 'take a bullet' for his boss.

Cohen took the lead in arranging the payment to Daniels, passing it through a corporation he established for the purpose. He says he was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the payment and related bonuses as 'legal expenses.'

A few months earlier, Cohen had also arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer to make the similar $150,00 payment to McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump. 

Cohen made recordings of a conversation in which he and Trump spoke about the arrangement to pay McDougal through the tabloid publisher. At one point, Trump said: 'What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?' Trump denies the affair.

After Trump became president, Cohen held himself out as someone who could potentially advise corporate clients on the new administration, collecting hefty fees from companies seeking influence in the new White House.

Federal prosecutors in 2018 charged Cohen with evading taxes related to his investments in the taxi industry, with lying to Congress and with campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments.

Cohen, who blamed Trump for his legal problems, pleaded guilty and served about a year in prison before being released to home confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is now a key prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation.

David Pecker

The National Enquirer's former publisher and a longtime Trump friend, David Pecker

The National Enquirer's former publisher and a longtime Trump friend, Pecker testified twice before the grand jury about the tabloid's involvement in suppressing negative stories about Trump.

Pecker met with Cohen during Trump's 2016 campaign and said the Enquirer's parent company would help buy and bury potentially damaging stories about Trump's relationship with women.

Pecker, who was the Enquirer's chairman and chief executive at the time, agreed to keep Cohen apprised of any such stories. 

In June 2016, he alerted Cohen that McDougal's lawyer had approached the publication seeking to sell her story about an alleged affair with Trump.

The Enquirer's owner at the time, American Media Inc., then agreed to pay McDougal for 'limited life rights' to the story of her relationship with 'any then-married man.' 

The publisher said it would feature her on two magazine covers and print more than 100 of her articles in exchange for $150,000.

Cohen signed an agreement to buy the nondisclosure part of McDougal's contract for $125,000 through a company he formed, but Pecker later called off the deal and told Cohen to tear up the agreement.

Federal prosecutors agreed in 2018 not to prosecute American Media in exchange for its cooperation in the campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen's guilty plea and prison sentence. 

The Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, deeming the McDougal deal as a 'prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.'

Pecker stepped down as CEO of the publisher in 2020.

Karen McDougal 

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal, pictured with magazine founder Hugh Hefner, says she had an affair with Trump from 2006 through 2007

A former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump in the mid-2000s, McDougal was paid $150,000 in 2016 by the parent company of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship. 

Trump denies any affair.

The story never ran. The company suppressed McDougal's story until after the election, a dubious journalism practice known as'catch and kill. 

American Media Inc. has acknowledged that its payments to McDougal were done specifically to assist Trump's election bid and were made 'in concert' with his campaign.

McDougal has said Trump tried to pay her after their first sexual tryst at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2006. McDougal said she continued the relationship with Trump for about 10 months and broke it off in April 2007 because she felt guilty.

 Allen Weisselberg 

Allen Weisselberg, former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, is accused of structuring the payment to Daniels 

The longtime chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, Weisselberg made key decisions in how the company kept its books, but did not appear to be cooperating with the hush-money investigation.

During testimony before Congress in 2019, Cohen said it was Weisselberg who decided how to structure his reimbursement for the payment to Daniels. Cohen said Weisselberg paid the money out over 12 months 'so that it would look like a retainer.'  

Federal prosecutors gave Weisselberg limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for his grand jury testimony in their investigation of the payments. 

But the Manhattan district attorney's office ultimately brought unrelated charges against Weisselberg for dodging income taxes on job perks he got from Trump's company, including a rent-free apartment and a luxury car.

He pleaded guilty and is serving a short jail term set to expire in April.

Justice Juan Merchan

Colombian native Justice Juan Merchan has slapped Trump with a gag order in the case 

A respected jurist and former prosecutor, Merchan is the judge in Trump’s criminal case — the latest in a string of Trump-related cases he’s presided over.

Merchan, an acting justice in the criminal division of New York’s trial court, was the judge in the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial last year and a related case against the company’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.

Merchan, 61, is the supervising judge of the grand jury that indicted Trump and is presiding over a border wall fraud case against longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon. He is also the judge of Manhattan’s mental health court.

Merchan steered the negotiations that led to Weisselberg’s guilty plea last summer, which called for him to testify against the Trump Organization in exchange for a five-month jail sentence.

During the company’s trial, Merchan was calm and considered but irked the defense with some rulings they felt were favorable to the prosecution.

Merchan, a graduate of Hofstra law school, worked in the trial and investigations divisions of the Manhattan district attorney’s office in the 1990s and held various roles in the state attorney general’s office before being appointed to the bench in 2006.

Merchan started as a family court judge in the Bronx. 

In 2009, he was appointed to the court of claims, which deals with lawsuits against the state, and assigned to his current role, as an acting justice in the trial court, which in New York is known as Supreme Court. He is not elected to the post.

DA Alvin Bragg

Manhattan's first Black district attorney, Alvin Bragg is the the first prosecutor anywhere to bring a criminal case against a former U.S. president

Manhattan's first Black district attorney, Bragg is the the first prosecutor anywhere to bring a criminal case against a former U.S. president. The Democrat inherited an investigation of Trump when he took office in January 2022.

Bragg grew up in Harlem during the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, where he says he was held at gunpoint six times — three times by police. 

A graduate of Harvard Law School, he previously worked as a federal prosecutor, chief deputy state attorney general, civil rights lawyer and law school professor.

Bragg campaigned for office as a progressive reformer. He was elected with 83% of the vote in deep-blue Manhattan.

After taking office, Bragg paused an investigation into Trump's business dealings that had been seen as gathering momentum toward a possible indictment. 

But after his prosecutors won a trial last year in which Trump's company, the Trump Organization, was convicted of tax fraud, Bragg convened a new grand jury to examine the hush money payouts.

Jeffrey McConney

Jeffrey McConney, former corporate controller for the Trump Organization, was previously accused of helping Trump to inflate the value of properties 

Former corporate controller Jeffrey McConney worked at the Trump Organization from 1987 until February 2023. He has testified that he retired and is receiving a total of $500,000 in severance payments. 

McConney was among defendants in the trial in which New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges that Trump and executives at his company fraudulently inflated his wealth on his financial statements, which were used to secure loans and insurance.

He is not accused of wrongdoing in the Daniels case but is a witness because he logged and processed payments for Trump's companies for decades. 

Todd Blanche

Todd Blanche is representing Trump in numerous legal cases 

Former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche left his role at a prestigious law firm in order to defend Trump in this case, the classified documents case and the election interference case. 

Susan Necheles

Susan Necheles is a New York City defense lawyer who represented Trump's company at its tax fraud trial last year and has been working behind-the-scenes on the former president's criminal defense

Necheles is a New York City defense lawyer who represented Trump's company at its tax fraud trial last year and has been working behind-the-scenes on the former president's criminal defense, meeting with prosecutors in an attempt to head off potential charges.

In the past she served as counsel to the late Genovese crime family underboss Venero Mangano, known as Benny Eggs, and defended John Gotti's lawyer, Bruce Cutler, in a contempt-of-court case in the early 1990s.

In recent years, the Yale Law School graduate has represented liquor heiress Clare Bronfman in the NXIVM cult case.

Like former Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina, Necheles is a former Brooklyn prosecutor.

During the Trump Organization trial, she made a point of referring to Trump as 'President Trump.'

'This is not a political statement,' she explained to jurors. 'My parents were immigrants and migrants,' she continued.

'And in my home we referred to all former presidents as presidents out of respect for the office, whether we supported him, or disagreed with him.'

Gedalia M. Stern 

Gedalia Stern is a partner at Susan Necheles law firm in Queens and specializes in white collar crime 

Gedalia Stern is a partner at Susan Necheles law firm in Queens. 

A Columbia graduate, Stern previously defended the Trump organization in a tax fraud case and has a reputation for defending bribery and fraud cases.  

Emil Bove 

Trump lawyer Emil Bove was the co-chief of national security for the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York

Emil Bove was only added to Trump's legal team recently, another former prosecutor, Bove is a specialist in white collar crime. 

While a prosecutor, Bove was the co-chief of national security for the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York. He left that office in 2021. 

Matthew Colangelo

Bragg hired Matthew Colangelo in December 2022 to lead the investigation into Trump

Bragg hired Matthew Colangelo in December 2022 to lead the investigation. They previously worked together on Trump-related matters as senior officials at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James.

During his tenure with the attorney general's office, Colangelo worked on a lawsuit that resulted in the closure of Trump's charitable foundation for misusing funds. 

He was also part of a wave of state litigation against Trump administration policies, resulting in dozens of lawsuits that challenged everything from diluted environmental standards to changes to U.S. mail service ahead of the 2020 election.

After President Joe Biden took office, Colangelo joined the U.S. Justice Department and was temporarily its third in command. 

He then became a principal deputy to Associate U.S. Attorney General Vanita Gupta. 

Previously, Colangelo served as deputy assistant to President Barack Obama, was a deputy director of the National Economic Council and a chief of staff for the U.S. labor secretary.

Keith Davidson

Keith Davidson, Stormy Daniels lawyer, pictured during a 2023 interview 

Stormy Daniels' lawyer during the hush money debacle, Keith Davidson, negotiated with Michael Cohen for the $130,000.  

Dylan Howard 

Dylan Howard was the former top editor at National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc

Dylan Howard was the former top editor at National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. 

Howard took over as the chief editor of the startup celebrity news site Celebuzz in early 2012, after a stint running American Media’s Los Angeles office.

Staffers at the National Enquirer previously said that they were ordered to stop pursuing the Daniels story despite promising leads. 

Howard left American Media in 2020.