N.Y. trial’s focus on tawdry scandal could underscore Trump’s weakness with women

NEW YORK — Former president Donald Trump and his allies have fought back against the criminal case he faces here by discounting the impact of alleged conduct that happened years ago and charges that center on the seemingly tedious subject of business records.

But the last flurry of motions before jury selection began Monday showed that prosecutors plan to lay out a different kind of story, one that has much more in common with the tabloid fodder that fueled Trump’s fame and revisits the “Access Hollywood” scandal that was a low point during the final weeks of the 2016 election he went on to win. That framing could scramble expectations about the salience of this trial for voters considering whether to return Trump to the White House in November.