It's a month before the election in 2016. We are just learning about the "Access Hollywood" 'pu$$y-grabber. DJ and his wife do an interview on TV, she says it's only "boy-talk" and no way would her husband REALLY do that. Besides, that video was years ago. This isn't what he's like now.
The drop in the polls slows - a little bit - but meanwhile there's another story out there waiting to break. One DJ knew could be the last nail on the coffin if it came out just NOW, so soon after Access Hollywood. This is a big one - about his brief out-of-town encounter with a porn star.
DJ is desperate to lock down the Stormy Daniels story and prevent more damage to his suddenly shaky campaign.
Enter "fixer," Michael Cohen, who, at Trump's behest, negotiates a secret $130,000 "hush money" payment to secure Daniels' silence days before the 2016 presidential election.
Instead of headlines blaring he had an affair with a porn star, he I'm probably wins election in a squeaker over Hillary Clinton, who won 3 million more popular votes but lost the.electoral count.

What IF the Stormy Daniels story HAD come out - on 60 Minutes, or 20/20 or even just the NYT or WaPo late that October? Would it have soured enough conservatives on the amoral adulterer that he would instead have lost the 2016 election?

Whild no one can positively know the answer, the probability is something most reasonable people would answer in the affirmative.

And THAT is why the trial going on now is about fraud and election interference.

DJ knowingly succeeded in influencing the outcome of that election with the hush money bribe made secretly and from which he attempted to distance himself.