--- title: Even Some Trump Critics See the Stormy Daniels Case As Weak description: Democrats privately are worried that an indictment over hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels might undermine more serious cases into Trump. canonical: https://time.com/6264605/trump-critics-stormy-daniels-case-weak/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-03-20T19:21:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T15:36:34.068Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why Even Trump Critics Think the Stormy Daniels Case Is Weak og:description: Some Trump critics are worried that the Stormy Daniels case is weak, and a Trump indictment might undermine more serious cases into Trump og:url: https://time.com/6264605/trump-critics-stormy-daniels-case-weak/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a1fa5b8911601a1/698a3b42cabb1da55ae513b9/GettyImages-1248342870.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testifies before grand jury og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Even Trump Critics Think the Stormy Daniels Case Is Weak twitter:description: Some Trump critics are worried that the Stormy Daniels case is weak, and a Trump indictment might undermine more serious cases into Trump twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a1fa5b8911601a1/698a3b42cabb1da55ae513b9/GettyImages-1248342870.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Even Some of Trump’s Critics Think the Stormy Daniels Case Is Weak  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Mar 20, 2023 7:21 PM UTC  Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, walks out of a Manhattan courthouse after testifying before a grand jury, in New York, United States on March 15, 2023. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, walks out of a Manhattan courthouse after testifying before a grand jury, in New York, United States on March 15, 2023.Fatih Aktas—Anadolu Agency via Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Mar 20, 2023 7:21 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Donald Trump may be days, or even [hours](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/20/law-enforcement-donald-trump-indictment-plan-00087836), away from becoming the first former President to be criminally indicted. It’s what Trump critics have been waiting years for. But this was not the case they were envisioning as the one leading to that coveted Trump mugshot. Democrats privately are worried that the case before a Manhattan grand jury—based on Trump’s alleged role in hush-money [payments](https://www.axios.com/2023/03/18/trump-stormy-daniels-payment-probe) made to an adult film star to cover up an affair—might be the weakest of all of the [investigations](https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/donald-trump-investigations) into Trump and his orbit. It’s also not connected to the aspects of the former President’s behavior that his detractors find most galling, such as his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Even Republican NeverTrumpers who are eager to crown a new leader of their party fear that a case seen as less-than-rock-solid could undermine future, potentially more damning ones. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is widely expected to be preparing an indictment of Trump on a felony for bookkeeping fraud, a charge based on his companies’ ledgers listing legal retainers which were actually [hush money](https://www.axios.com/2023/03/18/trump-stormy-daniels-payment-probe) about an affair with Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors would have to prove that Trump ordered his lieutenants to make the false entries with the express purpose to defraud. To reach the felony threshold, those prosecutors would also have to prove that Trump made those false entries to sanction another crime—a potentially easy spot for Trump’s defense to discredit. For most presidential candidates, even the whiff of legal or ethical trouble would amount to a starting pistol for their opponents. In 2008, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, critics of Hillary Clinton made sure every reporter’s inbox had links to the local reporting on the arrest of an unpaid adviser for drunken driving in Nashua. Four years later, Mitt Romney never could shake the [notion](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-183291/) that he was a heartless and ruthless corporate raider, no matter how hard he tried to [combat](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/From-the-Wires/2012/0518/Why-is-Mitt-Romney-serving-warm-cookies-to-the-media) the notion. As TIME’s Brian Bennett [reports](https://time.com/6264019/trump-indictment-charges-campaign-donations/), Trump’s legal team actually thinks an [indictment](https://time.com/6264352/donald-trump-arrest-what-happen/) could prove [helpful](https://www.axios.com/2023/03/15/trump-indictment-charges-manhattan-2024) for Trump’s return to power, or at least his chase of the GOP nomination for a third time. And here’s the harsh truth: they aren’t entirely irrational. Trump and his allies would not have much difficulty painting an indictment tied to his efforts to cover up a decade-old affair as a “political witch hunt.” Such a framing fits nicely with the perpetual [grievance](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/politics/trump-indictment-stormy-daniels-bragg.html) machine that Trump has created, so much so that it could even help his standing with the base (although the outlook gets cloudier when it comes to a general election between him and the likely Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden). To whip up his supporters, Trump on Saturday [asserted](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-illegal-leaks-indicate-will-arrested-tuesday-ny-hush-money-rcna75577)—without evidence—that he would be arrested this Tuesday: “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” he posted on his social media platform in an echo of his promotion of the Jan. 6, 2021, rally that turned into a deadly riot. Trump saw his enviably [steady](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/upshot/donald-trump-approval-poll.html) poll standing [bump](https://www.axios.com/2022/08/22/trump-gaining-polls-fbi-search) up after raids of his private home in Florida. If Trump’s [first indictment](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/the-first-criminal-case-against-trump-is-this.html) comes out of New York—a venue seen as a reliably favorable to Democrats—and is received cautiously even by some liberals, what are the odds of anyone paying attention to ones based on his [attempt](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/us/trumps-georgia-special-grand-jury.html) to keep the presidency through [cajoling](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/grand-jury-heard-trump-call-georgia-speaker-overturning-bidens-victory-rcna75240) Georgia election officials, or what the Department of Justice here in D.C. might do with a House committee’s [recommendations](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/us/politics/jan-6-trump-justice-dept.html) for his role around the Jan. 6 mob? Plenty of risk lies in wait. All of which lays out how, once again, the laws of political gravity seldom apply to Trump, a man who has consistently survived scandals that would have crippled other figures. Even after two [impeachments](https://time.com/5928988/donald-trump-impeached-second-time/), a national electoral [loss](https://time.com/5907973/donald-trump-loses-2020-election/), a failed [attempt](https://time.com/6192383/donald-trump-knew-jan-6-hearings/) to undo that loss on Jan. 6, and a pile of stories about missing classified [documents](https://time.com/6210013/donald-trump-legal-liability-documents-doj/), Trump has the [backing](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/indictment-help-trumps-2024-bid-say-maga-voters-rcna75587) of two-thirds of Republicans and independent voters who lean that way, according to recent [polls](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158538798/poll-bidens-standing-improves-while-trump-slumps-with-republican-voters). Those facts alone help explain why many of his would-be rivals quickly stepped up to defend the ex-President. There will have to be a moment to directly challenge Trump if any of his roughly two dozen aspirational challengers have a chance to deny him the nomination. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was [blunt](https://www.businessinsider.com/christ-christie-says-being-indicted-never-helps-anybody-trump-indictment-2023-3) when asked about the threat: “Look at the end, being indicted never helps anybody.” While Republicans are weary of his style, they are [telling](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/politics/cnn-poll-republicans-2024-nominee/index.html) pollsters they want someone who shares their worldview more than someone who can beat Biden. And given that 84% of them are [saying](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/politics/cnn-poll-republicans-2024-nominee/index.html) Biden wasn’t legitimately elected in 2020 and 56% saying there is solid evidence of this, Trumpism clearly has taken hold. (Neither [statement](https://time.com/5907674/joe-biden-wins-2020-election/) is true.) Seeing Trump in [handcuffs](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/nyregion/trump-arrest-indictment-nypd.html) would only boost that sense of being wronged. And it may compel Trump’s most viable challengers to treat him with empathy and solidarity if they ever hope to someday entice voters to plant non-Trump yard signs and buy non-MAGA swag down the line. The only question their strategists have to mull at the moment is what—if anything—can break the Trump fever inside the current GOP? Maybe not even a mugshot can do it right now. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6264605/trump-critics-stormy-daniels-case-weak/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6264605/trump-critics-stormy-daniels-case-weak/"},"headline":"Why Even Some of Trump’s Critics Think the Stormy Daniels Case Is Weak","datePublished":"2023-03-20T19:21:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T15:36:34.068Z","description":"Democrats privately are worried that an indictment over hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels might undermine more serious cases into Trump","url":"https://time.com/6264605/trump-critics-stormy-daniels-case-weak/","keywords":["The D.C. Brief","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a1fa5b8911601a1/698a3b42cabb1da55ae513b9/GettyImages-1248342870.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Philip Elliott","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a1fa5b8911601a1/698a3b42cabb1da55ae513b9/GettyImages-1248342870.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testifies before grand jury","caption":"Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testifies before grand jury","creditText":"Fatih Aktas—Anadolu Agency via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/the-dc-brief/","name":"The D.C. Brief"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6264605/trump-critics-stormy-daniels-case-weak/","name":"Why Even Some of Trump’s Critics Think the Stormy Daniels Case Is Weak"}}]}] ```