Tag: indictment

Hill Republicans sprint to Trump’s corner before indictment details are clear

[ad_1]
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said her party should retaliate by impeaching President Joe Biden because “the gloves are off.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) warned colleagues in Congress that they need to “think long and hard about their oath of office” and “step up … or get out of the way.” Speaker Kevin McCarthy made no promises of specific action but said the House would “hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”
“Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election,” he said in a statement.
Though the precise details of the charges against Trump are unclear, the New York-based case centers on allegations that he bought the silence of Stormy Daniels, who sought to sell her story of an earlier affair with Trump in the closing weeks of the 2016 election. Bragg confirmed that he had contacted Trump’s lawyer to “coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office” but that the indictment remained sealed and an arraignment date had not yet been picked.
The hush money case percolated in New York and in the Justice Department for years but eventually went dormant. Bragg appeared to abandon it shortly after becoming district attorney last year but it surged back to life in recent weeks, with a cascade of witnesses — including Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen — returning to the grand jury. That timeline has led Trump to frame the probe as politically motivated, driven by Democratic-led prosecutors in New York City.
Republicans on Capitol Hill were eager to amplify those claims, often in starkly political terms, contending that the charges against Trump would motivate his supporters and boost his prospects for returning to the White House in 2024.
Even Senate Republicans, who have not leapt as readily as their House counterparts to defend Trump in the past, blasted out statements condemning the indictment.
“This is a politically-motivated prosecution by a far-left activist,” Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso of Wyoming said in a statement. “If it was anyone other than President Trump, a case like this would never be brought.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) declared that the indictment “doesn’t pass the smell test.”
“Politics should never tip the scales of justice, and Congress has every right to investigate the conduct and decision-making of the Manhattan D.A.’s office,” he added.”
Democrats, on the other hand, made a concerted effort to present a measured response, suggesting that the legal process should play out and the indictment showed no one – not even a former president – was above the law.
“The indictment of a former president is unprecedented. But so are Trump’s alleged offenses,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of Trump’s longtime political nemeses. “If the rule of law is to be applied equally — and it must — it must apply to the powerful as it does to everyone else. Even presidents. Especially presidents. To do otherwise is not democracy.”
Others urged allies not to “celebrate” and emphasized the “somber” nature of the news, particularly amid concerns that a Trump indictment might be accompanied by security risks.
“As this case progress, let us neither celebrate nor destroy,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (R-Calif.) said in a statement.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) issued a quick rejoinder to McCarthy, emphasizing that his heated rebuke of Bragg came despite the complete absence of details about the evidence the district attorney had amassed.
“Dear @SpeakerMcCarthy: You don’t know the charges. You don’t know the evidence presented to the grand jury. You don’t know about other evidence the DA may have,” Lieu wrote. “What you are doing is attempted political interference in an ongoing local criminal prosecution and you need to stop.”
[ad_2]
#Hill #Republicans #sprint #Trumps #corner #indictment #details #clear
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Trump lashes out at ‘radical left monsters’ after grand jury indictment

[ad_1]

“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,” Trump continued.
The only former president to have been indicted, Trump sought to tie the recent investigation to the 2016 campaign and the events of his subsequent presidency.
“You remember it just like I do: Russia, Russia, Russia; the Mueller Hoax; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; Impeachment Hoax 1; Impeachment Hoax 2; the illegal and unconstitutional Mar-a-Lago raid; and now this,” Trump said.
Trump repeated, without evidence, another frequent refrain about the “weaponization” of the justice system and continued his verbal assault on Bragg, accusing the district attorney of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work.”
He finished with a rallying call to MAGA voters amid his campaign for the presidency in 2024.
“So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he said.
In a follow-up post on Truth Social, Trump lashed out at “Thugs and Radical Left Monsters.” In all caps, he further called the indictment an attack on “our once free and fair elections” and the U.S. a “third world nation.”
In a further post, the former president said he “cannot get a fair trial in New York.”

[ad_2]
#Trump #lashes #radical #left #monsters #grand #jury #indictment
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
New Yorkers cautious ahead of Trump’s likely indictment in hush money case

[ad_1]
New York: New Yorkers are voicing mixed feelings amid the possibility of Donald Trump’s indictment, with some expressing confidence that law enforcement agencies will be able to maintain order in the city while others apprehensive of how the situation will unfold if criminal charges are brought against the former US president.
A grand jury is weighing whether to indict Trump, 76, over hush money payments made to a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Barricades have come up at several points near the courthouses in Lower Manhattan as well as outside the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg where police personnel are manning the premises as it was expected that Trump could be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury this past week.
“Barricades are being set up around Manhattan Criminal Court as our nation awaits an announcement on whether President Donald J. Trump will be INDICTED despite having committed NO CRIME,” a Trump email said.
The area outside the courthouses wore a deserted look Friday as the week wrapped up without the grand jury indictment that could charge Trump.
While Trump has called on his supporters to protest against the indictment, there were no demonstrators outside the courthouses as the week concluded.
There are expectations that the grand jury could meet Monday, when pro-Trump supporters, as well as protestors, could gather again in lower Manhattan, along with hordes of camera persons and journalists, intently waiting for the possible indictment and keeping an eye on its aftermath.
On Friday it was business as usual in and outside the court premises as New Yorkers went about their business, tourists stopped by the imposing court stairs to click pictures, newly-wed couples posed for photos after their marriage ceremonies in the court and police and a handful of media persons stood nearby monitoring developments.

Parimal Prasad, part of a marriage party that came out of the courthouse, said Trump should be indicted and “treated just like any other citizen.”
“If the court finds him guilty, he should be behind bars,” he said.
Prasad said he is not too concerned about the possibility of violence and protests if and when Trump is indicated “because the law enforcement agencies will take care of that.”
Another resident, who did not wish to give his name, said Trump’s indictment is “long-overdue” and voiced hope that “things will be safe” in and around the city.
Benjamin, a student at New York University, who lives across the road from the criminal courthouses, said he has noticed a “lot of hysteria” over the past few days about Trump.
“I’ve lived in the area for about four years and have never seen this much preparation around the courthouses,” he said.
He cited the January 6 Capitol riots and other lapses by Trump during his presidency.
He also said that he is “very concerned” about large-scale protests in the eventuality that Trump is indicted.
“Protests and riots are no stranger to New York City.”
“I feel like what will come to him will come to him,” he said and added, “I hope justice prevails.”
[ad_2]
#Yorkers #cautious #ahead #Trumps #indictment #hush #money #case
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 25, 2023
Potential Trump indictment pushed, as grand jury hears unrelated case

[ad_1]

It wasn’t immediately clear why the grand jury wouldn’t hear evidence in the Donald Trump case on Thursday. | Karsten Moran for POLITICO
NEW YORK — The Manhattan grand jury hearing evidence in the criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged role in hush money payment to Stormy Daniels is evaluating an unrelated case Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter, making any potential indictment of the former president unlikely before next week.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the grand jury wouldn’t hear evidence in the Trump case on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the panel was adjourned, POLITICO reported. The grand jury typically meets Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and it heard from at least one witness in the Trump case earlier this week.
[ad_2]
#Potential #Trump #indictment #pushed #grand #jury #hears #unrelated #case
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 23, 2023
Everything you should know about the potential Trump indictment

[ad_1]
Is Trump definitely going to be indicted?
No, but it appears very likely. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has brought numerous witnesses before the grand jury and offered Trump a chance to go before the grand jury, an indication that the office will seek to indict him. Though it is possible for the grand jury to vote against charging him, grand juries rarely decline to indict. And if the district attorney’s office thought they were in danger of the grand jury voting “no,” prosecutors likely would have paused the proceedings.
What does the grand jury vote entail?
After prosecutors finish presenting witnesses, an assistant district attorney will tell the 23-person grand jury which charges they will be considering and will read them the text of the law. The grand jury will then leave to discuss the case and vote on it. An indictment requires 12 or more jurors to vote yes. If that happens, the vote will be recorded on a form and signed, then taken by someone from the district attorney’s office to either the clerk’s office or to the office of the judge who is overseeing the grand jury. It will be placed into an envelope, sealed and stamped by a clerk.
How will we know if and when Trump is indicted?
Once the indictment is stamped, the district attorney’s office will notify an attorney for Trump that he has been indicted. At this point, Trump is free to make this information public.
Will he be arrested? Will his mug shot be taken? When will he appear in court?
Because the case is white-collar, the district attorney’s office will ask Trump’s attorney when he plans to come to New York to be arraigned. The law doesn’t require a defendant to turn himself in within a specific timeframe, so the timing here is flexible. Whenever he comes to New York, he and his attorney will report to the district attorney’s office where Trump will be arrested and booked, which means he’ll be finger-printed and have his mug shot taken. He may also get a DNA swab. It is unclear how his Secret Service protection may affect this process.
He’ll then be taken to a judge, where the district attorney’s office will ask for the indictment to be unsealed. It is possible that he’ll be handcuffed when he is transported from the district attorney’s office to court — a short walk away within the same building.
At this point, he’ll be arraigned, which means he’ll have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. And then he’ll be released, because the charges he is likely to face are non-bailable.
What happens next?
The judge will set a date for his next court appearance, usually for the defense and prosecution to discuss additional steps as well as a potential discussion about the discovery process.
After his initial court appearance, Trump will most likely be able to return to his Florida home, or wherever he chooses.

And how far will House Republicans take their Bragg investigation?
House Republicans followed through with a pledge to investigate Bragg over claims of a politicized judicial process — but the probe is still in its infancy. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), James Comer (R-Ky.) and Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) — the chairs of the Judiciary, Oversight and Administration committees — fired off a letter to Bragg accusing him of “actions [that] will erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice and unalterably interfere in the course of the 2024 presidential election” if Trump is indicted. (A DA spokesperson responded saying they wouldn’t be “intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process.”)
Republicans are giving Bragg until 10:00 a.m. Thursday to set up an interview with committee staff. They also want a tranche of documents and records, including any related to federal funding or communications with the Justice Department and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Those requests are, for now, voluntary, and the letter doesn’t include a mention of a “compulsory” process if Bragg doesn’t comply. In other words, no subpoenas.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Tracking Trump investigations
[ad_2]
#potential #Trump #indictment
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 22, 2023
Stop Overthinking It: An Indictment Would Be Bad For Trump

[ad_1]

It is not irrational speculation. Americans have a history of sticking with flamboyant politicians with more than a passing relationship with the criminal justice system, from Marion Barry in Washington, D.C., to Edwin Edwards in Louisiana. Trump is a character from a similar mold, with an even tighter grip on his followers that verges at times on the quasi-mystical. At another point in his political life, perhaps Trump might have turned this case into rich fodder for a comeback.
Not now. For all his unusual strengths, Trump is defined these days more by his weaknesses — personal and political deficiencies that have grown with time and now figure to undermine any attempt to exploit the criminal case against him.
His base of support is too small, his political imagination too depleted and his instinct for self-absorption too overwhelming for him to marshal a broad, lasting backlash. His determination to look inward and backward has been a problem for his campaign even without the indictment. It will be a bigger one if and when he’s indicted.
Tracking Trump investigations
Trump has been unusually resilient against scandal over the years thanks to the unbreakable loyalty of voters who see him as their champion in the arena. My colleagues David Siders and Adam Wren reported that Republicans expect Trump to get a short-term boost from the indictment because it will energize his core supporters. That is probably true.
But those supporters are a minority of the country, as Republicans have learned the hard way several times over. Stimulating Trump’s personal following was not enough to save the House for his party in 2018 or to defend the White House and the Senate in 2020, or to summon a red wave in 2022.
Trump needs to grow his support, not merely rev up people who already care deeply about his every utterance and obsession. It is not likely that many Americans who are not already part of Trump’s base will be inspired to join it because they feel he is being mistreated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Personality-cult politics, on its own, has never really been a winning model for Trump. At his strongest moments, he has convinced voters that Trumpism is about far more than Trump — that it is not merely a jumble of racist and sexist outbursts and weird grudges against the likes of Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly, but a worldview that might transform America. Trump’s great success in 2016 was his ability to persuade tens of millions of Americans to see him as a stand-in for their own grievances and yearnings.

The most memorable moment in his convention speech that year was when he declared the United States was horrifically broken and “I alone can fix it.” His critics rightly saw it as a telling display of a narcissistic and authoritarian mindset.
But the bit in that speech that best conveyed Trump’s appeal was one taking aim at the Clinton catch phrase, “I’m With Her.” Trump’s rejoinder: “I choose to recite a different pledge. My pledge reads: ‘I’m With You.’”
Suddenly Clinton was the self-absorbed one and he was the tribune of plebs.
It is hard for a candidate to tell voters “I’m with you” when he is mainly consumed with narrow, personal complaints and crackpot conspiracy theories. Plenty of Americans can see themselves in an older white man scorned by liberals and the media for his crude manner and bigoted ideas. Fewer are likely to see themselves in a wealthy husband paying hush money to conceal his debauched sex life and whining about the unfairness of his circumstances in every public outing.
What is the great cause of Trump’s 2024 campaign, aside from Trump himself?
The politicians who best weather scandal are the ones who tell and show voters that they are doing the people’s business while opponents stew in lurid trivia.
Bill Clinton survived impeachment and finished his second term as a popular president by persuading voters that he was balancing budgets and keeping them safe while Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr pilfered his underwear drawer. More recently, Ralph Northam overcame a blackface scandal and completed his term as governor of Virginia by promising to devote himself to fighting racial inequality. (One civil rights leader in Richmond captured the appeal of this approach, telling the Christian Science Monitor of Northam’s critics: “People can continue to talk about yesterday. I want to talk about tomorrow.”)
Abroad, Benjamin Netanyahu endured as the leader of Israel’s political right while fighting corruption charges, and returned in December to serve as prime minister, by arguing to voters that he was his country’s only true steward of national security and the allegations against him were a left-wing plot — a distraction from things that really matter.
Trump does not have much to say about things that really matter.
Unlike the Trump of 2016, who shattered the policy orthodoxy of the GOP establishment and reshaped the party’s ideology in his own image, the Trump of today contributes nothing new to the Republican agenda.
He has fallen behind the times even compared to his current and former allies. In South Carolina, he ridiculed electric cars standing beside Gov. Henry McMaster, a 75-year-old loyalist who like other Republican governors has promoted his state as a hub for EV manufacturing. When the Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion, Trump largely declined to address the most significant consequence of his own judicial appointments. It was Mike Pence, his excommunicated vice president, who hailed the decision as a transcendent victory for the right to life and vowed to carry forward the battle against abortion.
On the war in Ukraine, Trump speaks for a faction of the GOP when he derides it as a waste of money that is not America’s problem to solve. He is alone among Republican candidates in threading that view with admiring commentary about Vladimir Putin. His hostile view of China — a subject on which he reshaped American political discourse — remains compromised by his tendency to talk about Xi Jinping like a golfing buddy.
None of this is to say that Trump cannot win the Republican nomination, or even the presidency. Elections are unpredictable. But it is past time to give up the idea that stoking the anger of Trump’s diehard fans is a victory unto itself.
If each scandal or blunder binds 99 percent of his base closer to him and unsettles 1 percent, that is still a losing formula for a politician whose base is an electoral minority. Trump cannot shed fractional support with every controversy but make it up on volume.
The question before Republicans is whether they need another lesson from the electorate in the perils of running on a version of Trumpism that is all about Trump. A campaign about Jan. 6 and Stormy Daniels is not one that is likely to end well for Republicans.
That is a mortal problem for Trump’s candidacy.
He alone can fix it.
[ad_2]
#Stop #Overthinking #Indictment #Bad #Trump
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 20, 2023
Why an indictment may help Trump — and threaten the GOP

[ad_1]

Sensing an opening, Trump’s campaign began to turn the impending indictment into a litmus test for the rest of the field: either defend the ex-president, they warned, or be labeled a leftist sympathizer.
Even Trump’s GOP detractors began to see the writing on the wall.
“He’s become the new Teflon president,” said Michael Brodkorb, a former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party and a longtime critic of Trump. “He is someone who has built his entire political empire on being the victim all the time, and being the martyr, and this is just another example.”
For the duration of the Trump era, Trump has sought to turn one seemingly disqualifying scandal after another into his benefit. Sometimes he’s succeeded (the Access Hollywood tape was not the dagger everyone expected it to be), sometimes he’s struggled (the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 remains largely unkind). In each case, he’s survived.
The expected, coming indictment will test that once more; though, so far, the timing could hardly be better for him. If he is arrested this week, it will once more frame the early stages of the presidential primary around him, just as Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and several other high-profile Republicans consider launching their own campaigns.
“It seems very evident that the left is trying everything they can to discredit former President Donald Trump,” said Bruce Cherry, chair of Seminole County Republican executive committee in Florida, who said the “best possible ticket this country could have” would be Trump as the presidential nominee alongside DeSantis, as his running mate. “The indictment, I feel, doesn’t mean anything.”
If anything, Republicans say, Trump will benefit from a short-term rush of support, much as he did following the FBI’s seizure of documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate last year. It may not manifest itself in national polls — where independent and Democratic voters will be reminded of the drama and scandals that seem to perpetually follow Trump. But one national GOP strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the political fallout, said the ex-president would likely enjoy an immediate fundraising boost in an otherwise unfriendly political environment.
“Small-dollar donors are down,” this person said. “It’s going to motivate them. It proves there is a witch hunt.”

On right-wing social media channels over the weekend, some Trump supporters were debating the merits of violent versus nonviolent protest, loosely contemplating a trucker strike or a bank run while others warned of a deep state “trap.” Unlike legal challenges Trump faces in Fulton County, Ga., and in a special counsel probe around Jan. 6, the case in New York is coming from a district attorney in Manhattan, viewed by many Republicans as an epicenter of the excesses of the left.
“In this case, I think Republicans will rally around Trump initially,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster. “Long-term, it depends on what happens with this case, as well as the other criminal investigations.”
If Trump ends up facing multiple indictments, Ayres said, it’s possible that primary voters who are at least open to other Republican presidential candidates will see him as having too much “baggage.” But, he cautioned, no one fully can understand how it will all play out. After all, it’s never happened before.
“I have never studied the indictment of a former president and leading presidential candidate,” Ayres said, “and I’ve never done any polling on the indictment of a former president and leading presidential candidate.”
One nagging fear of some Trump critics is that the case against him may prove to be weak, and that beating it could further embolden him. Former Rep. Peter Meijer, the Michigan Republican who lost his primary last year after voting to impeach Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 riot, said “bullshit Dem crusades help Trump in his primary, which, if he wins, helps Dems by getting the weakest GOP candidate to the general.”
Trump’s highest profile 2024 GOP critic of late, Pence, declined to twist the knife on Saturday. Campaigning in Iowa at foreign policy forum hosted by the Bastion Institute, he told reporters: “No one is above the law. I’m confident President Trump can take care of himself.”
But privately, Pence’s allies have made the case that Trump is likely to face more indictments related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“He’s trying to walk a pretty narrow fence line,” Mike Murphy, a former Indiana Republican state lawmaker who is close to Pence, said of the former vice president’s comments. “He’s trying to keep Trump at arm’s length. But at the same time he knows the Republican base is going to go nuts if this happens on Tuesday. He has to come off as empathetic to their concerns, without being empathetic to Trump. The more serious potential indictment is in Atlanta. He’s going to be clear on that one that right is right and wrong is wrong.”
It’s possible that Trump is overplaying his hand, with his call to “Protest, take our nation back!” and with a rally on Saturday in Waco, Texas, the first of his 2024 campaign. If protests do not materialize — or if crowd sizes are paltry — “it’ll show that the Trump movement is sputtering,” said one longtime Republican strategist who was granted anonymity to discuss the dynamics of the 2024 campaign.
It’s also possible that Republicans fixated on electability will, after Trump’s loss in 2020 and a disappointing midterm, see Trump’s indictment as untenable in a general election.
“At some point, some of his supporters will see that the pile-on effect of these legal actions directly affects his ability to win a general election,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and longtime party strategist. “There is a reality that could start sinking in that he’s going to be diverted by these legal actions through the entire campaign, probably.”
The biggest fear for some Republicans, however, is that an indictment may truly hurt Trump and the GOP just when the party needs to win back independents and moderate Republicans who ran away from them in 2020. Images of an indicted former president or of the protests it sparks could be painful reminders of his time in office.
“It helps him in the Republican primary, but he was going to win the Republican primary, anyway,” said Mike Madrid, the Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.
The problem for the GOP, he said, is that even if an indictment further intensifies Trump’s base, it will do nothing for the party in the general election.
“The intensity of a shrinking base is not the sign of a growing movement,” Madrid said. “It’s the sign of a dwarf star imploding.”
Natalie Allison contributed to this report.

[ad_2]
#indictment #Trump #threaten #GOP
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 19, 2023
McCarthy calls for House investigations as Republicans slam potential Trump indictment

[ad_1]

Rep. Chip Roy
said an indictment of the former president would be “politically-motivated” — a symptom of what Roy called a “politicized ‘justice’ system that will be (is being) weaponized against ALL Americans.”
Sen. JD Vance tweeted “We simply don’t have a real country if justice depends on politics,” maintaining that a Trump indictment would not cause him to reconsider his endorsement of the former president in 2024.
Prominent Trump-allied Republicans such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also responded in support of McCarthy’s tweet as Democrats immediately hit back.
“The guy who created a committee to look into ‘weaponization of government’ is using his powers in government to stop an independent prosecution of his boss,” Rep. Eric Swalwell wrote in his own tweet.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg defended the ongoing investigation in various media appearances this week, saying his team of prosecutors are “focused on the evidence and the law.”
Earlier in the morning, Greene unleashed a tirade of accusations against Bragg and “Biden’s DOJ,” calling on congressional Republicans to respond with legal action.
“Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this! We have the power to do it and we also have the power to DEFUND their salaries and departments!” Greene tweeted. “The American people deserve a government that actually works for them NOT a bunch of self centered communists who bail out their donors, protect the elites, and weld [sic] their power to punish their political enemies!”
Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy, the only Republican presidential hopeful in 2024 to comment so far, said a Trump indictment “would be a national disaster,” and that it is “un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals,” before calling on the Manhattan DA to “reconsider this action and to put aside partisan politics in service of preserving our Constitutional republic.”

[ad_2]
#McCarthy #calls #House #investigations #Republicans #slam #potential #Trump #indictment
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 18, 2023
Stormy Daniels speaks to New York prosecutors as possible Trump indictment looms

[ad_1]
A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Daniels’ meeting with prosecutors comes after a flurry of activity signaling an indictment of the former president is likely imminent.
Earlier this week, the grand jury examining evidence in the inquiry heard from Trump’s one-time attorney Michael Cohen, he confirmed to POLITICO. Cohen facilitated the payment to Daniels and has said in court that he paid hush money to Trump’s accuser “in coordination with and at the direction of” the former president. Trump has denied the Daniels affair.
And an attorney for Trump, Joe Tacopina, said prosecutors had offered the former president an opportunity to go before the grand jury, but that Trump had no plans to do so. Prosecutors typically offer a potential defendant the chance to speak to the grand jury near the conclusion of their inquiry.
Prosecutors are weighing a felony charge against Trump related to how his real estate company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment. Federal prosecutors, who charged Cohen in a separate case in 2018, said the firm falsely recorded the reimbursement payments as legal expenses. Cohen pleaded guilty in that case.
[ad_2]
#Stormy #Daniels #speaks #York #prosecutors #Trump #indictment #looms
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 16, 2023
New indictment details Bankman-Fried's illegal campaign contributions

[ad_1]

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday revealed new details of how FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly made millions of dollars of illegal campaign contributions using stolen customer money, as they hit the one-time crypto exchange executive with new fraud charges.
Federal prosecutors in New York alleged that Bankman-Fried and two unnamed co-conspirators took out loans from Alameda Research — his hedge fund — and siphoned FTX customer funds to pump money into campaigns and super PACs that supported candidates from both parties in the 2022 midterms. The charges indicate the misuse of funds for political activity contributed to the collapse of the FTX exchange last year.
Bankman-Fried improperly funneled contributions through other individuals to support dozens of Republicans as well as left-of-center Democrats whom he didn’t want associated with his personal brand, according to the indictment. Bankman-Fried and his partners used an encrypted Signal messaging channel to coordinate their efforts, which ultimately resulted in more than 300 unlawful contributions.
Bankman-Fried, along with fellow FTX exchange executives Ryan Salame and Nishad Singh, were among the most prolific political donors during the 2022 cycle. Salame and Singh have reportedly cooperated with regulators.
Amid the scrutiny of FTX since its bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried’s arrest in December, some congressional campaigns and super PACs have already set aside funds equalto the FTX team’s contributions until they receive further instruction.
FTX’s new management, which is overseeing the platform’s bankruptcy restructuring, formally requested political contractors and organizations return the funds earlier this year.
Bankman-Fried is now charged with 12 criminal counts, including securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter. Prosecutors initially charged Bankman-Fried in December on eight criminal counts. He pleaded not guilty.
A spokesperson for Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Thursday’s indictment identifies a contribution of $107,000 to the New York State Democratic Party made shortly before the midterm elections as an example of how Bankman-Fried sought to hide the extent of his political activities. The funds, which were wired from Bankman-Fried’s bank account, were tagged as having come from an unnamed co-conspirator instead.
“As soon as I saw that, I asked that the funds be segregated,” New York State Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs said in an interview on Thursday afternoon. “We’re awaiting direction [from federal authorities] on who we return that money to.”
The new indictment provides fresh details on the efforts that Bankman-Fried allegedly undertook to evade scrutiny by regulators and investors as he built up FTX as one of the largest crypto firms in the world.
Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried required those who worked with him to use “encrypted and ephemeral messaging platforms” to prevent regulators and law enforcement from obtaining records of his actions. He directed Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who is cooperating with prosecutors, to change certain Alameda entities’ names to make venture capital investments appear as if they came from FTX, according to the indictment.
In 2020, Bankman-Fried also set up another entity called North Dimension to become a front with an unidentified California bank, prosecutors said Thursday. The account was set up under North Dimension so that it could house FTX customer deposits without Bankman-Fried’s other businesses facing scrutiny from the bank, according to the indictment. The customer funds housed in the North Dimension account, as well as others, were then allegedly used by Alameda to finance its operations, make investments and fund campaign contributions, prosecutors said.
[ad_2]
#indictment #details #BankmanFried039s #illegal #campaign #contributions
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 24, 2023