Hush money is the informal term for a payment made to keep someone from publicly disclosing information. The payment itself is not, in most jurisdictions, illegal. What can be illegal is how the payment is recorded, how it is funded, or whether it is made for an unlawful purpose such as influencing an election.

The legal meaning

Non-disclosure agreements with cash settlements are routine in commercial litigation, employment disputes and divorce proceedings. The phrase "hush money" tends to be reserved by reporters for situations where the underlying conduct is embarrassing rather than commercially confidential, and where the recipient has agreed to silence about a public figure.

The Trump New York case

The most-searched modern hush-money case is the New York County prosecution of Donald Trump, which went to trial in April 2024. The case concerned a $130,000 payment made by Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen to the adult-film actor Stephanie Clifford, professionally known as Stormy Daniels, in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The legal jeopardy was not the payment itself. It was that the reimbursement to Cohen was logged in Trump Organization records as legal expenses, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged as falsification of business records. Because prosecutors argued the falsification was undertaken to conceal a separate violation, specifically, an unlawful campaign contribution, the records charges were elevated from misdemeanours to felonies under New York law.

The jury returned a guilty verdict on all 34 counts on 30 May 2024. The case became the first criminal conviction of a former US president.

Other notable hush-money cases

The category covers a wide span. Examples regularly cited in legal reporting include Harvey Weinstein's use of NDAs with cash settlements, the John Edwards 2008 campaign-finance prosecution, and a number of cases brought against US local officials accused of paying off complainants from public funds.

Key takeaway

The phrase "hush money" describes the purpose of a payment, not its legality. In the Trump New York case, what made the conduct criminal was the combination of falsified records and the underlying election-law theory. Without that pairing, a private cash settlement remains a civil matter.