On the second day of Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial, prosecutors made their opening statements claiming Mr. Trump tried to cover up a payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the Manhattan court that Trump and his team had falsified payment documents in the lead up to the 2016 election, which he believes constitutes ‘pure election fraud’.

Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records – including invoices, ledger entries, and cheques.

Trump’s defence insisted that the Republican candidate for the November 5 election and the first former president to go on criminal trial was ‘cloaked in innocence’ and had committed ‘no crime’. They said it’s democratic, not illegal, to attempt to influence an election. 

Prosecutors told the Manhattan court that Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, had worked with Trump Organisation’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, to ‘cook the books’ at Trump’s bidding.

They say the cover-up is plain election fraud, a second crime, that bumps up the charge of falsifying business records to a serious felony, which could harm Mr Trump’s presidency.

One poll by IPSOS / Reuters suggests 1 in 4 Republicans would no longer vote for Trump if he’s convicted as a felon.

Prosecutors wove a narrative of sleaze and scandal, saying Trump and his team were involved in a mass ‘catch and kill’ scheme to quash any unbecoming stories that would emerge before the 2016 election.

They claimed the infamous ‘Grab ’em by the pussy’ tape had rattled Trump’s campaign and that they quashed the Stormy Daniel claim with hush money to avoid scuppering his chances of becoming president at the time.

“The defendant and his campaign staff were deeply concerned that it would irreparably damage his standing with female voters in particular,” Mr Colangelo told the court.

He claimed that Mr Trump had falsified invoices to hide $420,000 in legal services payments to his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, which were in fact intended to pay him for silencing Daniels.

Donald Trump said the jury “was picked so fast” and imputed bias, saying the area of New York was mostly Democratic.