Tag: Trump

Your questions about the Trump indictment, answered

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What is Trump accused of?
While the precise charges are secret for now, prosecutors have concluded they can prove a criminal case against Trump because of the apparent subterfuge surrounding a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from publicizing her claim about a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen funded that payment through a home equity line of credit.
Trump insisted in April 2018 he did not know about the hush money, but Cohen provided Congress a series of check images, signed by Trump, reflecting payments to Cohen that he said were reimbursements for the money he laid out, including at least two that came while Trump was in the White House. Cohen said that Trump and his company concealed the purpose of the payments by falsely labeling them as legal expenses.
Under New York law, disguising such payments in corporate records is a crime, but typically only a misdemeanor. It becomes a felony if the false business records were intended to obscure a second crime. In this case, that second crime appears to be the use of the funds to advance Trump’s presidential campaign allegedly in violation of campaign finance laws.
The strongest evidence of such a link to politics may be the timing: After months of demands, the money was wired to Daniels’ lawyer on Oct. 27, 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election.
What are the possible holes in the prosecution’s case?
It is difficult to assess the case against Trump without knowing the exact charges or all of the evidence that prosecutors have marshaled during an investigation that has lasted more than four years. But based on publicly available information, legal experts have identified several features of the case that may present stumbling blocks as prosecutors seek a guilty verdict.
For starters, Cohen is not the strongest possible witness for prosecutors. He’s provided a lot of the evidence and testimony needed to bring the case, which investigators have gone to great lengths to authenticate. But his credibility is open to challenge since he pleaded guilty in 2018 to nine felonies and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. He’s also repeatedly expressed extreme bitterness towards Trump, even running a podcast he titled “Mea Culpa,” an allusion to his regrets over his time as Trump’s ally.
The case also dates to 2016 and 2017, so it is more than five years old. Some of the delay can be readily explained — pressing a criminal case against Trump while he was in office would have been difficult and perhaps impossible. But it’s been more than two years now since Trump left the White House.
Trump could argue that prosecutors waited too long. New York’s statute of limitations for most felonies is five years, but there are some exceptions to that deadline, including if the person being charged was living out of state.

Another potential difficulty: Prosecutors may have to prove that Trump knew the arrangement was illegal. Trump could argue that he fairly assumed that Cohen, as an attorney, was executing the payments and related paperwork in a manner that was lawful.
Will Trump remain free? Can he campaign while under indictment?
That will be up to the state-court judge assigned to Trump’s case, but it seems unlikely that prosecutors would seek to detain the former president or restrict his travel in the U.S. while the case is pending. There is no legal impediment to him continuing his presidential campaign while facing criminal charges — or even if he were jailed.
If Trump won the presidency while facing charges or a conviction, the legalities become considerably more murky. There are serious constitutional questions about whether a state court could keep someone elected to federal office from serving.
How will the indictment affect the other ongoing Trump-focused investigations?
The short answer is: Not much. There’s no reason to think the indictment in Manhattan will influence the trajectory of several other probes that present an acute risk of more criminal charges for Trump. A grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is examining his bid to overturn the election results in that state, and at the federal level, special counsel Jack Smith is leading twin probes into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and his retention of government documents after his presidency.
Formally, a federal criminal case against Trump — if it were filed — would allow federal prosecutors to take precedence over any local case or cases.
Concurrent criminal proceedings against Trump would inevitably cause some logistical problems, but typically the feds and local prosecutors try to work out any conflicts.
How long will it take Trump to be brought to trial?
It will, by necessity, take many months to commence a trial of a former president of the United States. Even if both sides were eager to proceed to trial quickly, ironing out legal and constitutional questions would likely stretch out over the next year and into the 2024 primary season.
Add to that Trump’s penchant — in nearly every legal matter he’s embroiled in — to seek to delay and prolong proceedings whenever possible.
Trump’s lawyers could try to move the case to federal court, arguing that at least some of the payments to Cohen took place while Trump was president and therefore a state court should have no authority to resolve the matter. Trump also could seek to move the trial to a different courthouse elsewhere in New York state. And he could try to have the indictment dismissed or reduced. All of these pre-trial motions will take time to resolve.
A criminal tax case the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed against the Trump Organization in the same court in 2021 took about 15 months to get to trial. A jury convicted two Trump companies on all 17 felony charges last December. The issues in the new case are narrower, but the focus on Trump personally seems certain to drag things out.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Opinion | The Painful Lesson Donald Trump Could Learn from R. Kelly and Michael Avenatti

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But today’s announcement is not good news for Trump. Even if he ultimately beats the charges in Manhattan, the mere fact that he is facing charges there will make it more difficult for him to defend himself in criminal cases elsewhere, be it Fulton County, federal court in Washington, or Florida where a classified documents case might be filed.
I’ve defended clients who face charges in multiple jurisdictions at the same time, and it’s a challenge. One might think that each case stands on its own merits, but in reality there is a multiplier effect that works against defendants. Instead of considering the best move in any one particular case, defense counsel have to consider how their words or actions in one case (Manhattan, for example) will impact other cases, including ones that haven’t been charged yet. Defending a client facing charges in multiple jurisdictions requires a defense team to weigh competing priorities and play three-dimensional chess while the prosecutors in each case can focus like a laser on the case at hand.
Don’t believe me? Just ask the beleaguered lawyers who defended R. Kelly in a wide-ranging racketeering case in New York federal court, an obstruction and child pornography case in Chicago federal court, a solicitation of a minor and child prostitution case in Minnesota state court, and a child sex abuse case in Chicago state court at the same time. They managed to ensure that the weakest case — the New York racketeering case — went first. But Kelly lost in both New York and Chicago federal court, even though some of his Chicago co-defendants were acquitted, and he was subsequently sentenced to 31 years in federal prison.
Michael Avenatti, who once represented Trump accuser Stormy Daniels, faced a similar meat grinder. In late March 2019, Avenatti was charged by federal prosecutors in New York with attempting to extort $25 million from Nike. On the same day, federal prosecutors in California charged Avenatti with wire fraud and bank fraud. Less than a month later, he was charged with embezzling money from clients. A month after that, prosecutors charged him with defrauding Daniels out of proceeds from her book deal. Avenatti lost the Nike extortion trial in New York in early 2020. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to stealing millions of dollars from his clients in California. The bottom line is that he prevailed in none of the cases and is due to be released in 2026.
One of the challenges facing most defendants who juggle cases in multiple jurisdictions is a drain on resources and attention. By the time Avenatti stood trial in California, he was out of funds and represented himself. Kelly, a multiple platinum-selling R&B singer whose net worth was once estimated at nearly $100 million, was so broke that he was unable to post $100,000 in bail. Trump likely won’t have that problem, so long as he can continue to pay for his legal bills using money raised by his political action committee.
But a conviction can be a problem for a defendant like Trump in a later trial. By the time Avenatti and Kelly reached their second trials, they were both convicted felons, which made it difficult for either to take the stand in his own defense. One of R. Kelly’s co-defendants testified for over four hours, and was ultimately acquitted, but Kelly couldn’t even consider doing so given his prior conviction. Trump needs a clean sweep in Manhattan to avoid a similar fate. Even a conviction on a misdemeanor falsifying business records charge, for example, would potentially be admissible to impeach Trump’s credibility if he testified in a federal trial.
Even if Trump is acquitted in Manhattan, that case might still create problems for his legal team. Typically, defense attorneys avoid taking positions — or having their clients say much at all — because every word from the client can be used against him in subsequent proceedings. If Trump takes the witness stand in Manhattan, prosecutors in other jurisdictions can comb through the transcript for nuggets to use against him in other trials.
Of course, Trump’s lawyers also appear to be unable to keep him from speaking publicly about the Manhattan charges. Those public statements, outside of a courtroom, can be used against him too.

The documents produced by Trump’s team in the Manhattan case can be obtained and used by prosecutors elsewhere. The legal positions he takes can preclude him from taking the opposite position elsewhere. A judge would be far less likely to take Trump’s position seriously in a subsequent case if he had taken a contradictory position earlier. The witnesses who testify on his behalf will never surprise another prosecutor again with their presence or their testimony.
When I was a federal prosecutor, the defense attorneys who gave me the most trouble were nimble and aggressive, hitting me with arguments and evidence that I did not expect. But it’s difficult to be nimble or aggressive when you have to consider how each word you say and action you take impacts multiple other cases that have been or could be brought against your client. That is the unenviable position that Trump’s attorneys find themselves in.
To be clear, Trump is not going to prison simply because multiple prosecutors might indict him simultaneously. Facts matter, of course, and defendants have tools they can use to manage this difficult situation. Trump’s team could try to employ a strategy used by the attorneys for the late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who requested a speedy trial in his corruption case and won an acquittal. But there was only one case against Stevens and it was weak from the start. (A subsequent investigation revealed that federal prosecutors withheld evidence beneficial to Stevens.)
Trump and his team can take solace that the first prosecutor up to the plate has a relatively weak case, but no one with experience handling multiple cases at once would argue that Wednesday was a good day for Team Trump. They face the prospect of a multi-front war and they may not have the luxury of fighting one battle at a time.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Manhattan’s DA wanted a Friday Trump arrest. Trump’s team said no.

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Former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s office. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
The Manhattan district attorney’s office asked for Donald Trump to surrender on Friday following a grand jury’s vote to indict the former president.
But lawyers for Trump rebuffed the request saying that the Secret Service, which provides security detail for the former president, needed more time to prepare.
The exchange, which was relayed to POLITICO by a law-enforcement source and confirmed by Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for the former president, underscores the extremely delicate, unprecedented nature of the indictment. Until Thursday, no ex-president in history had been criminally charged. And both the charges itself and the application of them have placed the country on uncharted legal and political terrain.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Opinion | Trump Seems to Be the Victim of a Witch Hunt. So What?

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The unusual charge from the Manhattan DA’s office that is apparently at issue has already prompted a broad consensus among conservative politicians and commentators that Trump is the victim of a political prosecution — a “witch hunt,” to use Trump’s preferred phrase. A Trump campaign email sent recently to supporters last week claimed that prosecutors in New York “chose their target first and have been hunting for a crime ever since.” Before the indictment came down, conservative legal commentator Andrew McCarthy, who is no fan of Trump as a political figure, argued that “it’s undeniable that no one who wasn’t Donald Trump would ever be charged for this.” Law professor Alan Dershowitz likewise said on Megyn Kelly’s show that “Nobody in their right mind would believe that Bragg would be going after John Smith or even John Edwards on a case like this. It’s obviously an example of ‘Get Trump’” — the name of Dershowitz’s latest book, in case you missed the promotional tie-in — “and it’s so, so dangerous.”
The claim is likely to be a central part of Trump’s defense, both in the public and legal arenas, and it is not likely to go away anytime soon — particularly since there is good reason to believe that it’s true.
The investigation by the DA’s office was reportedly spurred by news of the payment to Daniels all the way back in 2018 under Bragg’s predecessor, Cy Vance. According to a Supreme Court filing during the office’s fight to get Trump’s tax returns, the office put its investigation on hold at the request of the Justice Department around the time of Cohen’s guilty plea to a variety of federal charges, including campaign finance violations related to the payment to Daniels. Prosecutors in Manhattan picked the investigation back up in the summer of 2019 after they learned that the federal investigation had been closed without further charges.
In the intervening years, the office obtained Trump’s tax returns, charged and convicted both Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and the Trump Organization on narrow tax-related fraud charges, and pursued a broader criminal case against the former president based on the alleged manipulation of the value of his assets in submissions to lenders, insurers and government authorities. Last year, Bragg declined to approve an indictment on those grounds, concluding that the proposed case was not strong enough. That led the two prosecutors leading the effort at the time to resign, and one of them, a lawyer named Mark Pomerantz, proceeded to launch a highly unusual media campaign — one that resulted in a book and an appearance on 60 Minutes last month — assailing Bragg for refusing to charge Trump.
That book provided a very incomplete and misleading account of the strength of Pomerantz’s proposed case, but setting that aside, pretty much everything about it seemed designed to shore up Trump’s claim that he was the victim of a legal vendetta by the office. Pomerantz, who was tasked with leading the investigation, comes off as singularly obsessed with charging Trump with anything that he can come up with — no matter how obscure or bizarre the legal theory — and heavily motivated by his belief that Trump is a uniquely dangerous political figure who has done tremendous damage to the country. It is no surprise that Trump’s lawyers and congressional Republicans have become fond of citing the book in his defense.
After Pomerantz and his colleague’s resignation early last year, Bragg was assailed by many Democrats and legal commentators. He insisted that the investigation would continue, which it evidently did, but apparently the only viable case that the office felt comfortable bringing after all that was based on the payment to Daniels.
We are likely to hear a lot of clichés from the legal commentariat in the coming days — about how Bragg and his prosecutors are simply following the facts and the law, about how no one is above the law, and so on. That is all well and good, but the reality is that this particular criminal case probably never would have been brought for anyone but Trump. In fact, the investigation probably would not have begun in the first place for anyone else, but at the time, Trump was still in office, and given the Justice Department’s policy against indicting a sitting president, the Manhattan DA’s office was a convenient outlet and prosecutorial avenue for people who wanted to see Trump criminally prosecuted.
There is also no indication at the moment that the case against Trump has any real precedent in New York or elsewhere. Perhaps prosecutors will demonstrate that that is wrong as they defend the case in court, but thus far, no one seems to be able to identify a comparable case brought by a local prosecutor’s office.

Trump, of course, is not the first president or presidential candidate to engage in an extramarital affair. Democrat John Edwards was indicted by federal prosecutors in connection with a scheme to obtain nearly $1 million in funds from donors to conceal a mistress and child while he ran for president in 2008, but the Justice Department was unable to convict him. Former president Bill Clinton famously had an affair while in the White House, but as a matter of realpolitik, it is hard to believe that he would be criminally charged by a local prosecutor for that conduct even if he were to have done it recently.
It is worth being honest about all this — particularly as the public begins to grapple with the momentous development of Trump’s indictment — even though it does not mean that the case against Trump should be thrown out or is somehow invalid. It is possible that Bragg’s team closely scrutinized all of the evidence that had been gathered along with the available charges against Trump and concluded that they had just one viable case, albeit a sufficiently compelling one as a matter of law, based on the payments to Daniels.
There is nothing inherently wrong about that. Luck, both good and bad, plays an undeniable role in who gets the attention of prosecutors and who gets charged in the criminal justice system. I once had a foreign national who was a subject in one of my fraud investigations arrested because she happened to travel to the U.S. for a birthday party, and she was eventually indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison.
Sometimes an unusual case emerges out of nowhere for reasons that prosecutors could not have anticipated, and they have to deal with it the best way they can, even if the result is relatively modest and not as explosive a charge as the defendant’s detractors would want to see. Likewise, sometimes prosecutors conduct expansive, wide-ranging investigations, but when all is said and done, they are not able to establish the most damning allegations and instead are left with a relatively small case.
It is not particularly surprising that something like this would happen to Trump of all people — a man who has spent much of his adult life flirting with the line between lawful and unlawful conduct in ways that would be inconceivable to pretty much anyone else. He also does awful things fairly regularly, so he hardly deserved the benefit of the doubt when news of the payment to Daniels first became public, which also happened to come in the context of a swarm of allegations concerning Trump’s mistreatment of other women.
Trump and his defenders may claim that the indictment should be dismissed because he is the victim of selective or malicious prosecution, but at the moment, a legal argument along those lines appears likely to fail. The reason is that the law generally requires robust evidence that the defendant has been singled out for an improper reason and that other, similarly situated people have not been criminally charged for similar conduct. Perhaps we will come to find out that plenty of other New Yorkers have allegedly paid off women they slept with to keep quiet, and that they did so in the middle of a federal election, but that seems unlikely — and that, in turn, is likely to doom any effort by Trump to get the case tossed on those grounds.
Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that although Trump is an undoubtedly high-profile defendant, this is a relatively modest prosecution as a legal matter, exposing Trump — if the reporting to date has been accurate — to a maximum four-year term of imprisonment and, perhaps, no time at all even if he is convicted. That would be up to the sentencing judge, and we are a long way off from that scenario.
In the meantime, Trump is likely to try to make this process as inflammatory and painful as possible for the country, but there is no need for us to indulge his endless grievance-mongering or his self-serving account of the case against him.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

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

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“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.”

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
The same forces that made Trump who he is just got him indicted

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The salacious spectacle will immediately become a defining one for the 2024 campaign. For Trump, it presents a chance to play victim again. For the current president, Joe Biden, it creates a favorable split screen: hosting policy events and demanding action on gun violence while scandal engulfs his predecessor. For Republicans, it foreshadows an early test on whether to rally behind the former president’s defense and unleash a wave of attacks on the prosecutor bringing the historic charges.
It also serves as a reminder. Despite Trump’s move to Florida and his efforts to return to Washington, he has never truly left New York.
Trump is a creature of the city, and spent years using its ravenous and hyper-competitive media market to propel himself from an unknown outer-borough developer into Manhattan’s glitzy high-society scene. He struggled gaining acceptance with the city’s blue-blooded elite. He was deemed too loud, too gauche. He bristled at the criticisms but ultimately didn’t care to change; or maybe he just couldn’t.
Trump liked being in the news pages. But he loved being in the gossip pages.
It was there he built his reputation as a rising force on Manhattan’s real estate scene, a budding celebrity who dated only the most beautiful women. He was obsessed with appearing in the papers, believing that all publicity was good publicity, certain that New Yorkers would want to buy one of his apartments in an effort to steal a piece of the life he was leading.
“The final key to the way I promote is bravado: I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do,” Trump wrote in his 1987 best-selling book, “The Art of the Deal.” “That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts.”
It was more than a little hyperbole. Convinced that his personal stardom was the best way to advertise his buildings, Trump began to sell his sex life, even if little of it was true. And to promote it, he’d at times shamelessly pretend to be his own spokesperson, calling reporters on the phone as a pretend publicist — just one who sounded an awful lot like Trump — to plug The Donald’s latest romantic interest.
He was willing to manipulate the media, pay for silence and court tawdry headlines with salacious behavior.

And then he met Stormy Daniels, a porn star, at a 2006 golf tournament.
By that point, Trump had enjoyed a resurgence of fame thanks to the success of his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.” Daniels alleges the two had an affair and that, during the stretch run of the 2016 campaign, Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 in “hush money” to keep her quiet about it.
Trump has denied the tryst but acknowledged personally reimbursing the Daniels payment. It’s a playbook that rings familiar for those who have followed his career in full: money and sex and the use of influence to squash unflattering stories. Only this time, the spectacle wasn’t just one for the tabloids but for the courts too. Two people familiar with the matter confirmed on Thursday that a charge was coming, the specifics of which were set to be revealed by the Manhattan district attorney in the coming days.
Like most Trump stories, this one has now reached a recognizable chapter: where the audience wonders how the protagonist escapes. Trump has faced plenty of doomsday moments before — bankruptcies, the Access Hollywood tape, impeachment and Jan. 6.
But the indictment against him is only just the beginning of his legal troubles. He faces a probe in Georgia over possible election interference, as well as investigations into his mishandling of classified documents and his role in inciting that Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump has called for protests and his aides have demanded fealty from his rivals. Already, many Republicans in leadership positions in the House have pledged to use their positions of power to investigate the investigators. The other prospective members of the Republican field have slammed the probe and party insiders believe that Trump could get a bump in GOP primary polls.
But privately, Republicans are also fearful that Trump’s legal woes won’t just curtail his ability to campaign next year but impact the party too. It’s a view shared by those watching closely from inside the White House, too.
In a series of discussions, senior White House aides have debated how to respond to a possible charge. The answer never changed: say nothing. Avoid being accused of trying to influence a criminal justice matter. And why get in the way if an opponent might be self-destructing?
Shortly after the news broke Thursday, the White House said it would not be commenting.
Plans could end up changing. If Trump’s followers heed his calls for violence, the White House would condemn such a behavior. And aides acknowledge that Biden has the tendency to go off script and may say something if asked by a reporter.
But for now, they’re happy to be the PBS equivalent to Trump’s tabloid fodder.
As news aired last week about Trump calling for protests over his impending indictment, Biden held an award ceremony honoring beloved Americans like Bruce Springsteen, Gladys Knight and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and a mental health event featuring the stars of the earnest, feel- good show, “Ted Lasso.” His schedule in the days ahead of the indictment focused on policy announcements, and mourning the victims of a mass shooting in Nashville.
White House aides continue to believe that Trump is their most likely November 2024 matchup, assuming Biden follows through on his expected re-election bid. They also believe he would be the easiest Republican to beat. But most of all, the aides believe that Trump has already permanently lost a huge swatch of the independent and swing voters needed to win a general election. Trump may not grow tired of the spotlight. But a good chunk of voters have grown tired of him being in it.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Trump indicted in porn star hush money payment case

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Trump’s lawyers continued to maintain the former president’s innocence on Thursday.
“President Trump has been indicted. He did not commit any crime,” the attorneys Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles said in a statement. “We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court.”
Trump released a statement shortly after the news of the indictment broke, calling it a “witch-hunt,” and saying the move was an attempt by Democrats to interfere in the 2024 election.
“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” Trump wrote in his statement. “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 also went after District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying he was “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work.”
The district attorney’s office requested that Trump surrender on Friday, but Trump’s lawyers replied that the timeline was too tight, saying the U.S. Secret Service needed more time to prepare, according to a law enforcement official. Tacopina confirmed the exchange, adding that no date had been set for the former president’s surrender.
“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said. “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”
Trump has already tried to use the charges to rally his base, calling on his followers to protest and “take back our nation.” But there’s no precedent for a presidential candidate campaigning during his own criminal trial. And while the case could stretch beyond November 2024, a conviction before then would spark a host of constitutional issues.

Despite concern that Trump’s indictment could spark protests from his supporters, a spokesperson for New York Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday that there were no credible threats of violence.
“The NYPD continues to monitor all activity and there are no credible threats to the city at this time,” Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy said. “The NYPD always remains prepared to respond to events happening on the ground and keep New Yorkers safe.”
Dozens of court and police officers swarmed lower Manhattan after the indictment was announced. A chopper hovered overhead. Outside the courthouse, a handful of pro-indictment protesters praised the grand jury’s decision.
Bragg left the courthouse just after 7 p.m., ducking into his car without taking questions from reporters. Police officers surrounded his black SUV. A group of about 10 protesters in favor of the indictment draped a 25-foot banner outside the courthouse that read “Trump lies all the time.”
“I’m out here celebrating the fact that one of the most evil men on the planet has been stopped at least temporarily,” said Robert Hoatson, 71, who drove over from West Orange, N.J., after he saw the news on TV. “I’m so proud to be an American today.”
Hoatson runs a nonprofit for victims of sexual abuse. He held two signs, one that read “Throw away the key” and the other that said “Lock him up.”
Trump’s indictment follows the unrelated December conviction of his family business, the Trump Organization, for tax fraud in a case also prosecuted by Bragg.
The indictment of Trump stems from the 2018 federal conviction of his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations for facilitating the payment to Daniels. That payment came during the heart of the 2016 presidential campaign. And both Cohen and federal prosecutors have said that he acted “in coordination with and at the direction of” the former president.
“I stand by my testimony and the evidence that I provided to the district attorney of New York,” Cohen said on Thursday during an interview on MSNBC. While the indictment is “significant,” Cohen said, “it’s extremely important that we let the process work out, and that people do still understand that there is a presumption of innocence in this country.”
The Trump Organization later reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, prosecutors said in court filings. The company’s executives authorized $420,000 in payments to Cohen in an effort to cover his original payment and tax liabilities, and to reward him with a bonus, according to prosecutors. The Trump Organization falsely recorded those payments in their books as legal expenses, prosecutors said.

Protesters gather near the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York City on March 30, 2023, after a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump.
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Wes Parnell for POLITICO
Federal prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office subsequently pursued a criminal inquiry into whether those payments violated campaign finance law, but they later ended the probe without bringing charges.
The company’s former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, who was given immunity by federal prosecutors in their investigation of the hush money that led to the charges against Cohen, pleaded guilty to an unrelated tax fraud scheme in August 2022.
Cohen testified before the grand jury in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation of Trump. It’s unclear whether Weisselberg, who is now serving a five-month jail sentence, was also called as a witness.
Though the district attorney’s office offered Trump the opportunity to testify before the grand jury prior to his indictment, he declined to do so.
The indictment is sure to cloud Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and triggers a number of unprecedented scenarios. If he pleads not guilty and the case goes to trial, a process that can take many months, he could face the possibility of campaigning for the White House while undergoing a criminal trial. And if he were to win a second term while facing or serving a prison sentence, that would give rise to a host of constitutional issues.
Trump has said an indictment would not stop him from campaigning for another term. When asked whether he would stay in the 2024 race if formally charged, Trump told reporters at CPAC in March: “Oh absolutely. I wouldn’t even think about leaving.” He has said his supporters were “very upset” about the multiple investigations he’s facing, and added that he thought the probes would “enhance” his poll numbers.
Throughout his presidency and in his post-White House life, Trump has cast himself as a victim of partisan “witch hunt” investigations targeting him and his business dealings. His fellow Republicans have largely echoed that claim, though it remains to be seen whether those running for the party’s presidential nomination will rally to Trump’s side or cast him off.
At least one potential 2024 Republican rival, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, has said that Trump should end his campaign if charged.
“It is a dark day for America when a former President is indicted on criminal charges,” Hutchinson said in a statement following the news of the indictment. “Donald Trump should not be the next president, but that should be decided by the voters.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Trump supporter protesting Manhattan DA probe charged with menacing, harassment

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Rucker, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, does not have a prior criminal record. She is due back in court on May 17.
Rucker told officers she brandished the blade in “self defense,” according to Oltarsh. While she holds an Alaska driver’s license it was unclear whether she lived in Colorado or Texas, Oltarsh told the judge. She was released under a court-mandated supervision program to ensure she does not flee the state.
The altercation came after Trump called on his supporters to protest the probe and predicted “potential death & destruction” if he is indicted for his alleged role in a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Wearing a white thermal long-sleeve undershirt, blue jeans, and blue sneakers, Rucker stood expressionless in court Wednesday night. She refused to speak with reporters after the arraignment.
Judge Michael Gaffey issued an order of protection for the family.
The foursome bumped into the Trump supporter while crossing the intersection of Hogan Place and Centre Street just after 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, three bystanders told POLITICO. Rucker began arguing with the couple before she pulled out the knife and waved it at the family, according to the bystanders.
Court officers, who were stationed outside the building, rushed over, pulled out their guns and ordered the woman to drop the knife, the bystanders said. She was arrested without incident.
Despite calls from the former president to protest a potential indictment, so far, significant support for Trump has failed to materialize. Rucker was the only protester present outside the courthouse Tuesday.

The grand jury hearing evidence in the case is not expected to meet over the next month largely due to a previously scheduled hiatus.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of harassment counts.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 30, 2023
Most Americans think criminal charges should disqualify Trump from running again: poll

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And while 55 percent of respondents think Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is probing Trump for “serious” claims related to a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star, 60 percent believe the case is politically motivated. Only about a third of those surveyed believe the probe is being motivated by the law.
Trump has repeatedly blasted Bragg, a Democrat, for waging a so-called political witch-hunt aimed at stymying his chances for re-election.
POLITICO first reported Wednesday that the grand jury hearing evidence in Bragg’s investigation is expected to take a month-long break from the case.
Manhattan prosecutors are investigating Trump’s alleged role in a hush-money payment made to adult entertainer Stormy Daniels. The payment came during the height of his 2016 presidential campaign in order to prevent Daniels from publicizing an alleged affair with Trump. He has denied the affair and any wrongdoing in connection with the payment.
The probe is just one of several ongoing state and federal investigations into Trump.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 29, 2023
Manhattan Trump grand jury set to break for a month

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Prosecutors are examining Donald Trump’s alleged role in a $130,000 payment that was made to adult entertainer Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with the former president. | Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo
NEW YORK — The Manhattan grand jury examining Donald Trump’s alleged role in a hush money payment to a porn star isn’t expected to hear evidence in the case for the next month largely due to a previously scheduled hiatus, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.
The break would push any indictment of the former president to late April at the earliest, although it is possible that the grand jury’s schedule could change. In recent weeks, the Manhattan district attorney’s office hasn’t convened the panel on certain days. But it is District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prerogative to ask the grand jury to reconvene if prosecutors want the panel to meet during previously planned breaks.
The grand jury, which heard testimony in the Trump case on Monday, isn’t meeting Wednesday and is expected to examine evidence in a separate matter Thursday, the person said. The grand jury, which typically meets Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, is scheduled to consider another case next week on Monday and Wednesday, the person said, and isn’t expected to meet Thursday due to the Passover holiday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 29, 2023