Donald Trump’s indictment is scheduled to be read on Tuesday, April 4, in a New York courthouse. The former US president is being tried on 30 counts.
The grand jury delivered its verdict and voted to convict the former US president Donald Trump In the case of the alleged bribery of the porn star Stormy Daniels. The call is scheduled for Tuesday, April 4. It is the first time in American history that a former president has been criminally charged.
The indictment remains closed in court in Manhattan, and although it is not clear what crimes the grand jury decided to indict Donald Trump, CNN reports that the former president faces More than 30 counts.
Donald Trump, who was in Mar-A-Lago when the indictment was announced, is expected to appear in court on Tuesday, his attorney said. Susan Nichols in The New York Times. The ex-boss’s team says he will surrender to New York authorities for his trial, where he will be held briefly at the DA’s office, where he will likely be fingerprinted, a passport photo taken, and where he will plead his case before being released.
The investigation into Donald Trump, led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, centers around A.J $130,000 down payment from his former collaborator Michael Cohen She paid Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign to prevent her from revealing an affair she says she had with Donald Trump years earlier, which Daniels has denied.
Many experts have speculated that Donald Trump could be prosecuted for falsifying business documents (a misdemeanour), because a series of payments to compensate Michael Cohen for the amount paid to Stormy Daniels were falsely classified as “legal services”.
Prosecutors could also upgrade the charge to a felony by arguing that the $130,000 payment to the porn star was an illegal campaign donation, though this legal theory has yet to be tested.
A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said prosecutors contacted Donald Trump’s team Thursday night to “coordinate his surrender” to authorities, adding that “advice will be given when a trial date is set.”
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump called the indictment “out of the question.” According to him, this is the final stage of what he described as a “witch-hunt aimed at destroying the movement.”Make America Great Again“”.
The unprecedented decision to criminally charge Donald Trump follows a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which began during his presidency. The investigation began in 2019, months after Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to illegal federal campaign financing charges in connection with Stormy Daniels’ payments. The US Department of Justice called these payments Illegal contributions to Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. At the time of his guilty plea, Michael Cohen claimed he paid the porn star $130,000 on Donald Trump’s instructions. Since then, he has met with the attorney general’s office more than a dozen times and has gone from a staunch defender of the former US president to an outspoken critic.
Then, suddenly, the interrogation began. Prosecutors have decided to expand their investigation beyond hidden payments and are looking into accusations that Donald Trump lied about the value of his real estate. However, the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin BraggIt reportedly ended that part of the investigation last year over evidence concerns, prompting a senior prosecutor to resign and write a fiery letter. In recent months, Alvin Bragg’s office has appeared to back away from accusations in the Stormy Daniels case, calling witnesses before a grand jury and calling Donald Trump to testify, in a sign that the investigation was poignant at its conclusion.
The former US president has repeatedly claimed he never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, calling the investigation a “political witch hunt” led by left-leaning Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg. Donald Trump’s lawyers argued that Michael Cohen’s lack of credibility threatened the validity of the case and that the unprecedented nature of the charges put the case on an unstable legal footing. Donald Trump and his team have also argued that the five-year statute of limitations for criminal cases in New York has expired, though experts say there is legal doctrine that allows some cases to be extended beyond the time limit. More than a week before he was to be charged, Donald Trump predicted his arrest in a post on the Truth Social website and urged his supporters to protest outside the Manhattan Criminal Court. Law enforcement, including the NYPD and the FBI, have reportedly begun preparing for heightened security protocols, but the turnout for the protests has not been large.
Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair with Donald Trump was first revealed in January 2018 in a newspaper article Wall Street Journal That revealed the hidden money scheme, citing unnamed sources. Three months later, the porn star announced her alleged affair in an interview with the show 60 minutes. Stormy Daniels, who was 27 when Donald Trump was 60, said she met him at a golf tournament near Lake Tahoe in 2006, a year after he married. Melania Trump And several months after the birth of their son, Barron. When the alleged affair was made public, Donald Trump was facing numerous accusations of inappropriate behavior toward women, including the publication of an infamous tapeGet to Hollywood in which he is heard talking rudely about groping women.
Will the plaintiffs get a conviction in this case? According to many experts, everything depends on the possibility of proving Donald Trump’s direct involvement in falsifying documents and organizing payments in order to enhance his chances of being elected. Lawyers for the former president could argue that Michael Cohen, who initially paid the money himself, made the payments as part of his usual duties, unrelated to Donald Trump’s political activity and anonymous to the latter. The former president could also argue that the hidden payments had nothing to do with the campaign, as they were meant to avoid personal embarrassment rather than cement an electoral victory.
However, the former US president is still expected to face justice. In fact, Donald Trump has been the subject of two investigations by the US Department of Justice regarding his behavior in the weeks leading up to the January 6 riots and his handling of classified documents. Separately, he is also under investigation by Georgia state attorneys general over his attempts to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election. In addition, Donald Trump and his children are under investigation. A civil suit from the New York State Attorney General, who accuses them of illegally inflating the value of their assets in order to obtain more interest-bearing loans.
The indictment against Donald Trump marks a turning point in US history: it is the first time that a former president has been criminally charged. Moreover, the news comes as Donald Trump begins his campaign for president in 2024. Many allies rushed to his defense before the criminal charges were announced, and Republicans stepped up their criticism of Alvin Bragg in the days leading up to his indictment, leading to Counterattacks by Democrats and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. A group of House Republicans sent a letter to Alvin Bragg asking him to testify and accusing him of an “unprecedented abuse of attorney general’s authority”. Alvin Bragg’s office responded to the testimony by arguing that Congress lacked jurisdiction over the Manhattan attorney general’s office, while accusing some rival Democrats of using congressional resources for military purposes by attacking Alvin Bragg. A Manhattan district attorney received a death threat with a suspicious white powder in an envelope sent to his office last week, reports say. NBC NewsLaw enforcement reportedly saw an increase in threatening rhetoric and online violence in the run-up to the indictment.
Translated article from the American magazine Forbes – authors: Sarah Dorn and Nicholas Rayman
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