Who is Karen McDougal? All about the hush money scandals involving Donald Trump

On Tuesday, April 4, 2023, Donald Trump, indicted last week on federal criminal charges, pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records with the intent to allegedly conceal the hush money payments made to three individuals over 11 months in 2016.

As per the 16-page indictment, which was unsealed yesterday, Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from three cases involving three individuals. The document alleges that the former president made payments to three individuals to suppress damaging information that could potentially harm his presidential bid in the 2016 election campaign.

While one of the individuals cited in the case, adult film actress Stormy Daniels was widely publicized, an earlier payment made to Karen McDougal, a former model for Playboy voted “Playmate of the Year in 1998” has flown under the radar.

As per the BBC, born in Gary, Indiana, McDougal joined Playboy and was voted "Playmate of the 90s."

In 2006, McDougal told The New Yorker magazine that she met Trump at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, while he was shooting an episode of The Apprentice, and began a 10-month-long relationship with the businessman.

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Karen McDougal was paid to stop going public with scandalous stories about Trump

While the now 52-year-old Karen McDougal was not named in the recently unsealed indictment document, prosecutors cited evidence where Trump’s associates - lawyer Michael Cohen and the National Enquirer publisher and CEO of American Media David Pecker - silenced women, including McDougal, from publicizing damaging stories about the former president before the 2016 election.

The court documents stated that an individual identified as “woman 1” received $150,000 from Pecker, who reportedly offered to buy the rights to damaging stories about the then-presidential candidate and bury it in the lead-up to the election as it could potentially harm his odds of winning the race.

The pre-emptive action was dubbed “catch and kill.” However, the Wall Street Journal reported the story mere days before the 2016 election.

Per the Wall Street Journal, Karen McDougal was paid $150,000 from American Media to obtain the rights to the former playmate’s story and bury it before the 2016 elections.

As per the document, after the payment was made, the defendant reportedly directed his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse American media in cash. However, Cohen advised his boss against making direct payments and instead suggested that the money go through a shell company to hide the trail.

The unsealed indictment document states:

“The defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about February 14, 2017, with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise, to wit, an invoice from Michael Cohen dated February 14, 2017, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, and kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.”

While hush money payments cannot be categorized as illegal, money paid towards influencing elections is unlawful. The indictment accuses the former president of intentionally suppressing information through coercion in his bid to win the 2016 presidential election.

The former president has denied any wrongdoing in the case, but American Media and former CEO Pecker have acknowledged that the payments were made to help Trump’s presidential campaign.