Brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, the case was considered dead three years ago, when Bragg's predecessor and federal prosecutors abandoned it. But Bragg, who campaigned on his record suing the Trump administration more than a hundred times as a deputy in the New York state attorney general’s office, revived the case in 2021, filing felony charges against Trump last year alleging he had falsified the business records pertaining to the Daniels payments.

A number of legal experts have questioned Bragg's decision to seek felony charges in the case.

In New York, charges over falsified business records are typically brought as misdemeanors and are "rarely the senior offense in an indictment," according to the Financial Times. For the crime to rise to a felony, prosecutors must prove that the defendant falsified records to "commit or conceal another crime."