Trump hush-money trial: Key players at the centre of the former president's case

As Donald Trump sat at the defence table in the wood-panelled Manhattan courtroom over the past several weeks, he was joined by a cast of characters who featured in a type of Hollywood blockbuster.

There were a slate of intriguing potential witnesses, including an adult film actress, a fixer-turned-star-witness, a loyal money-man convicted of tax fraud and others.

A white-collar defence lawyer who bet his career on defending Mr Trump was leading the former president's defence team. Meanwhile, Manhattan's first black district attorney assembled a crack team of Manhattan prosecutors who were very familiar with Mr Trump and his organisation.

And the entire case was overseen by a seasoned New York Supreme Court judge who was well aware of Mr Trump's courtroom troubles and behaviour.

• What you need to know about Trump's hush-money trial

Mr Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records to disguise a hush-money payment to a woman with whom he allegedly had an affair. He has pleaded not guilty and denies having the affair. Below are the central players to know in the historic case.

The potential witnesses

Stormy Daniels - the adult film star - says she met Mr Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada. Ms Daniels - real name Stephanie Clifford - was 27 at the time, and a rising star in the adult film industry. She claims that Mr Trump propositioned her, and the two had sex soon after their introduction.

Mr Trump denies the encounter happened, but Ms Daniels alleges that a $130,000 (£105,000) hush-money payment she received from Michael Cohen - a lawyer for the Trump Organization - just before the 2016 election was to keep her silent about the encounter.

• Who is Stormy Daniels, and what happened with Donald Trump?

Since her allegations became public, she has become a frequent target of Mr Trump and his allies, but she remained committed to testifying against the former president.

She took the stand for two days, sharing a host of lurid details about the alleged sexual encounter, providing context leading up to the hush-money payment.

Michael Cohen - the fixer - started working as Mr Trump's personal lawyer in 2006. He pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance crimes in 2018 over making the hush-money payment to Ms Daniels, but he maintains that he sent the money at Mr Trump's direction.

He told the court that the former president aimed to conceal the scheme and avoid scandal by reimbursing him via a series of payments that were recorded as legal income. Mr Trump has called his former confidant a liar, and his legal team attempted to attack Cohen's credibility during cross-examination.

At one time, Cohen said he would take a bullet for the former president. But he later became a key witness in investigations of Mr Trump - including Robert Mueller's probe into allegations of the Trump campaign colluding with the Kremlin.

David Pecker - the tabloid publisher - is former CEO of American Media Inc (AMI), the parent company of the National Enquirer. When he led that tabloid, he pursued a practice known as "catch-and-kill" to support Mr Trump's 2016 presidential run. He did this by buying the rights to stories that cast Mr Trump in a bad light, he told the court. He would then decline to publish them, which effectively suppressed the damaging information. He was the trial's first witness.

Karen McDougal - the Playboy model - claims to have had an illicit affair with Mr Trump in 2006 and 2007, which the former president also denies. She says she was paid $150,000 by American Media Inc, the parent company of the National Enquirer, for her story. It forced her to keep quiet about the purported tryst.

Hope Hicks - the former White House aide - shed tears during her time on the stand, detailing the behind-the-scenes fallout of the hush-money payment scandal. A former press secretary for Mr Trump's 2016 campaign, Ms Hicks helped corroborate testimony from other witnesses as one of Mr Trump's former close confidantes.

Ms Hicks has been at Mr Trump's side for years

Ms Hicks also was privy to the details of the hush-money payment to Ms McDougal.

Dino Sajudin - the former Trump Tower doorman - did not end up taking the stand. But Mr Trump's team allegedly paid him hush-money as well, after he tried to sell a story to the National Enquirer about an unsubstantiated rumour that Mr Trump once fathered a child out of wedlock.

The New York judge

Justice Juan Merchan - the seasoned New York jurist - has previously spent time with Mr Trump in a Manhattan courtroom. He presided over the Trump Organization's tax fraud case that resulted in a hefty fine and jail time for the company's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.

That means the judge is well acquainted with Mr Trump's orbit and his courtroom tactics to delay, deny and deflect. That behaviour likely will draw Justice Merchan's ire. While he may be soft-spoken, he has earned the reputation of being a no-nonsense jurist.

He has issued several warnings to Mr Trump over his behaviour and threatened to kick a Trump ally and witness off the stand for giving him "side-eye".

• Who is Juan Merchan, the judge in Trump's case?

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has claimed on social media that "there has virtually never been a more conflicted judge than this one", and has attacked Justice Merchan's daughter - who is employed by a firm that works with Democrats. Mr Trump was then been barred from speaking about the judge's family.

The Manhattan prosecutors

Alvin Bragg - the Manhattan district attorney - became the first black man to lead the Manhattan District Attorney's office when he was elected in November 2021. He took over the investigation into Mr Trump and announced that his office would bring felony charges against the former president last April.

Mr Bragg has adopted a novel legal theory that will turn a misdemeanour - falsifying business records - into a felony. He alleged that Mr Trump changed the business records to cover up a second crime - the violation of election and tax laws. His office alleges that the Trump campaign sought to hide the affair from voters ahead of the 2016 election.

Legal experts have mixed views about whether the gambit will work, but Mr Bragg pulled together an experienced team of prosecutors who are very familiar with Mr Trump to make the case.

Joshua Steinglass helped lead the prosecution of the Trump Organization, which led to a conviction, and was then added to this team. Mr Steinglass, who directed the prosecutors' efforts at trial, has previously tried high-profile murder and manslaughter cases and other violent crimes.

The prosecution team also includes Susan Hoffinger, the chief of the office's investigations division who previously worked on the Trump Organization tax case; Christopher Conroy, who has worked on the investigations of Mr Trump the longest; and Rebecca Mangold, a prosecutor who specialises in economic crimes.

The former president's defence team

Todd Blanche - Trump's top trial lawyer - was a former federal prosecutor, registered Democrat and a New York City resident, but he tossed that all aside. Mr Blanche left a lucrative position as a partner at a Wall Street law firm, became a Republican and moved to Florida to take on the biggest client of his career - Mr Trump.

Once a colleague of Alvin Bragg, the lawyer prosecuting the former president, Mr Blanche sat on the other side of the courtroom from him. It was only the second time. He has served as a defence attorney in only one other criminal case that went to trial.

Susan Necheles - Trump lawyer - has represented Mr Trump in cases since 2021, but she has a long history of defending troubled politicians, real-estate developers and organised-crime figures - such as Venero Mangano, an underboss of the Genovese crime family with the nickname Benny Eggs. She represented the Trump Organization when it was convicted of criminal tax fraud and given a $1.6 million fine in December 2022.

Gedalia Stern, a partner in Ms Necheles law firm, and Emil Bove, a former federal prosecutor, are also on Mr Trump's defence team.