A quick answer:
hush-money
出处是最近Trump 的案子的报道
WSJ 的一个标题
NYT 的相关报道
Donald J. Trump, who has weathered two impeachment trials, a special counsel inquiry and decades of investigations, was accused by Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday of orchestrating a hush-money scheme to pave his path to the presidency and then covering it up from the White House.
关于案子，可能会有个困惑，就是付封口费，或者付任何的费用，怎么就违法了呢？
下面是关于这笔费用出问题的地方：
The charges against Mr. Trump trace to a $130,000 hush-money payment that his fixer, Michael D. Cohen, made to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the final days of the 2016 campaign. The payment, which Mr. Cohen said he made at Mr. Trump’s direction, suppressed her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump.
While serving as the commander in chief, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen, and that’s where the fraud kicked in, prosecutors say. In internal records, Mr. Trump’s company falsely classified the repayment to Mr. Cohen as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. Yet there were no such expenses, the prosecutors say, and the retainer agreement was fictional as well. （这个封口费在公司走账的时候，虚构成了另外一个用途）
Those bogus records underpin the 34 counts of falsifying business records: 11 counts involve the checks, 11 the monthly invoices Mr. Cohen submitted to the company, and 12 the entries in Mr. Trump’s general ledger. And to link Mr. Trump to those false records, prosecutors cited an Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen during which they “confirmed this repayment arrangement.”
这个案子可能的结局：
从目前的媒体解读来看，对于Trump 政治生命的影响相对更大些，就目前起诉的内容来看，入狱的概率还是比较低的。
It remains unclear whether he would face prison time. At most, falsifying business records amounts to a low-level felony that carries a maximum of four year in prison for each count, though a judge could sentence Mr. Trump to probation.
NYT 报道里另外很值得学习的几个表达
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经历了很多不容易 = weather
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铺平道路 = pave the path to ....
e.g. Donald J. Trump, who has weathered two impeachment trials ... was accused by Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday of orchestrating a hush-money scheme to pave his path to the presidency and then covering it up from the White House.
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就像是一场梦 = a surreal scene
e.g. Overall he said fewer than a dozen words, but at one point leaned forward and entered his plea of “not guilty” in the packed but pin-drop-quiet courtroom, a surreal scene for a man who months ago mounted a third run for the White House.
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闹剧时代 = a circuslike era
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以... 为特点 = marked by
e.g. But Mr. Trump’s election in 2016 also accelerated a circuslike era in American politics, marked by fiery social media posts and an at-best casual relationship with a truth. [这个表达也很有意思”]
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婚外生子 = a child out of wedlock
e.g..... who claimed to know that Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock.
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一会儿... 一会儿 = alternately ...
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利用 = leverage
e.g. For weeks, Mr. Trump has alternately fretted and blustered about the prospect of an arrest, while his aides have leveraged the indictment to ramp up fund-raising and push primary rivals into an awkward position somewhere between criticizing prosecutors and backing Mr. Trump.
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用 sway 表示影响力
e.g. The case will also test Mr. Trump’s sway over his party ...
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挤满了 = crammed with
e.g. As helicopters circled overhead, the streets were crammed with the press corps and hundreds of demonstrators, with the former president’s supporters and critics assembling at a nearby park, where they screamed at each other from across metal police barricades placed to keep the peace. [这几个内容都发生在同一个句点里，可以模仿下作者是怎么合理的拉长这个内容的：主要是后置的介词，后置的v-ing/v-ed 和 从句]
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突然引起大家关注 = burst into public view
e.g. The hush-money episode burst into public view a year into Mr. Trump’s presidency when The Wall Street Journal reported on the deal between Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels.
以上表达和句式，如果觉得可以用到，可以刻意的模仿下。
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