He isn’t being tried for the payment itself.
He’s being tried for falsifying business records. A misdemeanor.
It becomes a felony if the records were falsified in an attempt to conceal another crime which in this case would be an illegal campaign contribution.
David Pecker testified that the efforts to hide bad stories about Trump, and push bad stories about Cruz, Carson, Clinton etc were all in an effort to help the campaign and discussed the plan with Trump and Cohen.
RE: He being tried for falsifying business records. A misdemeanor.
The question is, did he use money from his business ( Trump Organization) to pay Daniels? Or did he use money from his own personal bank account? If the latter, why is that a misdemeanor?
What is written in the checks?