Melania will be Trump's key defense in Stormy Daniels case: legal expert

Donald Trump is expected to argue in his hush money payment trial that he ordered adult movie star Stormy Daniels be given money to keep quiet about their affair in an effort not to upset his wife, a legal expert told Newsweek.

He will argue that it was not done to hide the affair from voters, he said.

New York prosecutors say Trump sent hush money payments to two women, Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to persuade them not reveal affairs with him, and then falsified business records to hide the payments.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges leveled against him in the case.

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"I see the defense as being more about, 'I wanted to keep this away from my wife. It had nothing to do with the election, it had to do with my wife,' but even there ... there are very strong facts against that scenario," attorney and professor Andrew Weissmann told Newsweek in an article published Thursday.

"The allegation is that he didn't really care if this came out after the election. Well, if you were really trying to keep it from your wife, then you would never want it coming out. It won't be that you were ok with telling her, but you were waiting for the election to be over," Weissmann said.

Read more at Newsweek.