Rakesh kumar
On Thursday, a grand jury in New York City voted to indict Donald Trump, marking the first time an ex-president of the United States has faced criminal charges.
The historic indictment relates to $130,000 in payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels said she had an affair with the married Trump in 2006, something Trump has denied. Trump had characterized the cash refund as a legal expenditure.
Thursday night, a representative for the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed the indictment in a statement.
“This evening, we coordinated Mr. Trump’s surrender to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for arraignment on a sealed indictment from the [state] Supreme Court,” the official added. “Instruction will be provided when the arraignment date is chosen.” Supreme Court is the highest trial court in the state of New York.
Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, told NBC News that the Florida resident is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said early Thursday that he is anticipated to surrender to the Manhattan DA’s office.
“President Donald Trump was indicted. He was not guilty of a crime. Necheles and Tacopina declared in a joint statement, “We will vigorously oppose this political prosecution in court.”
Trump is scheduled to appear before acting Justice Juan Merchan about 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday for his criminal arraignment, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation. Merchan ruled over the successful prosecution of Trump’s corporation for tax evasion by the DA last year.
Because indictments in New York are routinely filed in court under seal after a grand jury’s vote, the actual charge or charges are unclear.
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It was widely known that Manhattan District Attorney Bragg was focusing on a criminal prosecution of fabricating company documents. This crime carries a maximum punishment of four years in jail.
Trump criticized the revelation in a Thursday evening statement.
Trump remarked in a statement, “This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.” “In their obsession to ‘Get Trump,’ the Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen, but now they’ve done the unthinkable: they’ve indicted a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference.”
Trump has frequently denied any wrongdoing in relation to the investigation, and he has called Bragg’s investigation a continuation of the partisan “witch hunt” against him. He has also alleged that Bragg, a black Democrat, is a “racist.”
This month, Trump stated that he will be jailed on March 21 and urged his supporters to “PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!” on his social media website, Truth Social. He has escalated his rhetoric in recent days, warning last week of “potential death and destruction” if indicted.
Thursday morning, security was increased in the area where the grand jury was meeting. The Secret Service, which provides protection for former presidents, is anticipated to arrange security for Trump’s visit at the courthouse with the New York police, FBI, and court officers.
The coordination would include discussions regarding Trump’s transportation and security needs to comply with the legal process, according to authorities.
Trump has stated that he has no intention of withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election, even if he is indicted. This month, he told reporters at an event, “Absolutely not.”
Congressional Republicans accused Bragg of prosecutorial misconduct, while Democrats praised the grand jury’s decision as proof that no one is above the law.
“The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg accountable for his unprecedented abuse of power,” tweeted California Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“Mr. Trump is subject to the same laws as every other American,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. According to the facts and the law, he will be able to utilize the legal system and a jury, not politics, to determine his fate. There should be no political meddling, intimidation, or influence from the outside in this matter.”
The White House addressed queries regarding the indictment to the Democratic National Committee, where a representative stated, “Regardless of the outcome of Trump’s upcoming legal proceedings, it’s clear that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans continue to control the Republican Party.”
Thursday, Trump’s opponents in 2024 and possible contenders for the nomination rushed to his defense. Former Vice President Mike Pence described the indictment as a “outrage” on CNN, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis referred to it as “un-American” and a “weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”
Nikki Haley, the first prominent Republican candidate to enter the race after Trump declared his candidacy, tweeted, “This is more about revenge than justice.”
The indictment is the culmination of years of investigation by the district attorney’s office, which charged two Trump Organization firms with a 15-year tax fraud conspiracy. The corporations were found guilty last year and ordered to pay penalties and fines totaling more than $1.6 million.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, is a vital witness in the current case.
Cohen admitted in federal court in 2018 that he made the illegal payment to Daniels for the “principal purpose” of influencing the 2016 presidential race at Trump’s direction. He was given a three-year prison sentence for these and other offenses.
Trump has acknowledged repaying Cohen $130,000, but has claimed that the transaction was lawful. Trump tweeted in 2018 that the money was “not from the campaign” and that the transaction was “a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, between two parties.”
Trump tweeted at the time, “The agreement was used to stop her false and extortionate affair allegations, despite her having already signed a detailed letter admitting there was no affair.”
According to court documents filed by federal prosecutors in Cohen’s case, he was reimbursed through payments organized by the Trump Organization.
“The Company accounted for these payments as legal expenses,” the lawsuit stated, despite the fact that “there was no retainer agreement and Cohen’s monthly invoices were unrelated to any legal services he rendered in 2017.”
Trump was never charged in the investigation he oversaw at the Justice Department, but according to court records in Cohen’s case, investigators suspected he was intimately connected the payment.
They observed that the payment was made as Trump was dealing with the aftermath from a leaked audio recording from the show “Access Hollywood” in which he admitted he enjoyed kissing and groping “beautiful women.” “If you’re a celebrity, they’ll let you do it. “Anything is possible,” he was recorded as saying.
The FBI court filing stated that “in the days following the Access Hollywood video, Cohen exchanged a series of calls, texts, and emails with Keith Davidson, who was then [Daniels’] attorney, David Pecker and Dylan Howard of American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, Trump, and Hope Hicks, who was then Trump’s presidential campaign press secretary.”
According to the FBI filing, Trump and Cohen also spoke on the day Cohen sent the money to Daniels’ attorney and the day the arrangement was concluded.
AMI cooperated with the federal investigation into Cohen and admitted paying another woman, Playboy model Karen McDougal, $150,000 to be silent about her alleged affair with Trump in order to assist his campaign. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, the publisher confirmed paying the money “in conjunction with a presidential candidate’s campaign.”
This month, Tacopina, one of Trump’s attorneys, told MSNBC’s Ari Melber that the papers were not fabricated because the money paid to Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, was a legitimate expense. Tacopina stated that it is not illegal.
After the grand jury began hearing testimony in January, Cohen met often with prosecutors, and Hicks was spotted leaving a meeting with prosecutors this month. Pecker testified in front of the grand jury on Monday and is believed to have been the panel’s penultimate witness before voting to indict Trump.
This month, prosecutors offered Trump the opportunity to voluntarily testify before the grand jury — an indication that the probe was nearing its conclusion — but he declined. “We are not convinced that they will bring a case, but if they do, we will handle it,” Tacopina said as Trump weighed his options.
State prosecutors in Manhattan had examined the faked company papers for years as part of a bigger investigation of Trump, with a former member of the team telling MSNBC this year that there were internal doubts about the “zombie” case’s validity.
Former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz told Rachel Maddow last month, “Intent to commit or conceal another crime is required to elevate the offense of a falsified business record to a felony.”
“When we first looked at it, we realized that there is a legal danger that if we bring felony charges, they may be reduced to misdemeanors, and as you indicated, we’re investigating a host of other criminal accusations. “Therefore, for the first time during my tenure, we decided to table the hush money situation,” Pomerantz stated.
“We referred to it internally as the ‘zombie case’ because it repeatedly rose from the dead, fell back to sleep, and rose from the dead,” he added.
Trump is also the target of at least three additional criminal investigations. Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, is investigating if he and his friends coordinated efforts to affect the election outcome in the state.
Jack Smith is leading simultaneous investigations into Trump’s activities during the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and his refusal to comply with a Justice Department subpoena requesting the return of federal information and possible mismanagement of the documents.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all three investigations and claims he is being targeted unfairly.
