evidence: Trump's campaign at the time believed the claims could harm his chances of winning the election, so he authorized the payment. He ultimately won that election against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Democrat. After the payment, Trump falsified his business records in an attempt to hide it, but it was discovered during an audit a few years later while he was in office, prompting the porn star to come forward publicly with her claims of an affair, claims she had wanted to make in 2016. That sparked an investigation into Trump and his business dealings and sparked the historic trial that played out in the New York City Criminal Courthouse in lower Manhattan for the past several weeks. [...] The payments Trump was found guilty of occurred between August 2015 and December 2017. In the first instance, Trump paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman via American Media Inc. (AMI) who claimed to harbor a story about an out-of-wedlock child Trump allegedly had.