Trump hush money criminal trial starts in New York on Monday

Donald Trump becomes the first US ex-president to go on criminal trial Monday - pushing the nation's legal and electoral systems to the limit less than seven months before Americans decide whether to return the scandal-plagued Republican to the White House.

Trump is accused of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels so as not to doom his 2016 election campaign.

The so-called hush money affair is only one of four criminal cases hanging over Trump and it is arguably the least serious.


But the real prospect of Trump becoming a convicted felon - and potentially facing jail time - throws an astonishing wild card into an already unprecedented election in which the right-wing populist is running on dark vows of "vengeance" against Democratic President Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020.