A New York grand jury voted Thursday to indict the former President Donald Trump in connection with a $130,000 gag payment to a porn star Storm Daniels before the 2016 election, his attorney told CNBC.
Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina told NBC News that Trump is expected to turn himself in at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office early next week. According to Susan Necheles, another Trump attorney, Trump is expected to be impeached on Tuesday. The former president is scheduled to appear before Judge Juan Mercan after 2:15 p.m. that day in Manhattan, two officials told NBC News. That could change.
Trump is the first chairperson accused, a development that would reverberate across the country. The indictment comes as he is a leading candidate seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Alvin Bragg confirmed the indictment Thursday night.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s office said: “Tonight, we reached out to Mr Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for charges under the Court’s indictment. Supreme Court, this indictment is still under seal. Instructions will be provided when an indictment date is selected.”
The number of charges Trump faces in the indictment was not disclosed on Thursday. And it is not known whether the indictment is limited to conduct related to the payment to Daniels or if it also includes conduct around a private hush payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal by the publisher. The National Enquirer. Trump’s attorneys told CNBC on Thursday night that they were unaware of the charges.
trumpet rescind the decision, calling it “the highest level of political persecution and election interference in history.” Just Wednesday, he said in a social media posts that he has “gained such respect for this grand jury.”
The allegation stems from the district attorney’s investigation into how the Trump Organization recorded Trump’s then-attorney reimbursement. Michael Cohen after Cohen paid Daniels, who is also known as Stephanie Clifford, to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006.
Follow our live coverage of the New York grand jury vote to prosecuting former president Donald Trump.
Trump was filming the TV show “Famous Apprentice” at the time of that purported date and was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, who gave birth to their son, Barron , several months earlier.
The Trump Organization in its business filings described the refund to Cohen as a legal expense.
Forging business records is usually a misdemeanor under New York law, but can be elevated to a felony if the misrepresentation is made to cover up another crime.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels or engaging in misconduct of any kind.
“This is the highest level of political suppression and election interference in history,” Trump said in a statement. “Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Catch Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – accusing someone who is completely incompetent.” guilty of blatant election interference.”
“President Trump has been indicted. He has committed no crime,” Tacopina and Necheles said.
“We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court,” the defense attorneys said.
The indictment, which will be prosecuted by Bragg’s office, is the first of what could lead to more criminal case against Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump is also being investigated by the US Department of Justice in two separate criminal cases. One is related to his efforts to overturn the victory of the President’s Electoral College Joe Biden during the 2020 election when he made false claims about popular vote fraud in that year’s popular vote. The other poll focused on Trump removing government records from the White House and whether he obstructed justice by keeping them at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida., for more than a year as government officials sought their return.
A state prosecutor in Atlanta is also separately investigating Trump and some of his allies over their efforts to get Georgia officials to reverse his defeat to Biden in the state in 2020.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, March 25, 2023.
Brandon Bells | beautiful pictures
Cohen, in a statement to NBC News, said: “For the first time in the history of our Country, a President (current or former) of the United States has been indicted. I take nothing for granted. We are proud to make this statement and would also like to remind everyone of the presumption of innocence; in accordance with the due process clause.”
“However, I take comfort in confirming the adage that no one is above the law, not even the former President,” Cohen said. “Today’s indictment is not the end of this chapter, but rather, just the beginning. Now that the charges have been filed, it would be better for the case to let the indictment speak for itself. Yes Two things I want to say at this point. It’s a matter of accountability and I stand by my testimony and the evidence that I have provided,” the Manhattan district attorney, he said.
Trump’s prosecution in Manhattan comes more than four years after Cohen, who had served him faithfully for many years before that, opposed Trump and began cooperating with federal, state, and law enforcement officials. local in New York.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal criminal charges including campaign finance violations of both a payment to Daniels and a separate payment he facilitated to McDougal, a former Playboy model , to buy off her silence about an affair she says she began with Trump in 2006.
The Federal Election Commission in 2021 fined The National Enquirer publisher $187,500 for “intentionally and intentionally” violates campaign laws by paying McDougal a $150,000 “catch and kill” fee to buy her story and bury it before the 2016 election.
Michael Cohen, a former attorney for former U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives at the New York Courthouse in New York City, U.S., March 13, 2023.
Eduardo Munoz | Reuters
Cohen said the payments were designed to protect Trump’s chances in that election, as he faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump escapes sanctions from the FEC.
Cohen met 20 times with investigators from the DA office before testifying for two days last week before a grand jury in Manhattan Criminal Court. That dashboard start meeting at the end of January and heard the testimony of multiple witnesses before Cohen.
Trump and several elected Republican officials have accused Bragg, a Democrat, of pursuing the investigation to harm him politically.
Bragg’s focus on the payment to Daniels in recent months has come as a surprise, as it is widely seen as the weakest possible criminal case against Trump in an investigation that began four years ago under Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr.
Adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels speaks before U.S. Federal Court with attorney Michael Avenatti (right) on April 16, 2018, in Lower Manhattan, New York.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | AFP | beautiful pictures
In February 2022, the two top prosecutors working on the investigation resigned after Bragg said he was pausing the investigation.
At the time, that investigation focused on Cohen’s allegations that Trump and the Trump Organization reported different values for the same real estate to reduce their tax burden and insurance costs, and to maximize the value of loans to them, among other things.
One of the prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz, in his resignation letter said Trump “committed many serious crimes” related to “the preparation and use of his annual Statement of Financial Status,” which “is untrue.”
Attorney General Letitia James in September filed a civil lawsuit seeking at least $250 million in fines from Trump, his company and his three adult children, alleging widespread fraud in financial statements.
James’ lawsuit, due to go to trial later this year, seeks to ban Trump permanently, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump And Ivanka Trump employees of a New York company and permanently ban Trump’s companies from being named in the New York state business lawsuit.
In December, a Manhattan grand jury convicted two Trump Organization subsidiaries of multiple counts related to a scheme that since 2005 sought to avoid paying taxes on director compensations. operating in the form of privileges including free apartments and luxury cars to then the chief financial officer was Allen Weisselberg.
Trump was not personally charged in that case, but he “knew exactly what was going on,” a prosecutor said during final arguments in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The Trump subsidiaries convicted in the case are fined $1.6 million for the plan in January at sentencing.
Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty in that case in August, was sentenced to five months in prison in January. He is expected to be released from the notorious Rikers Island prison on April 19. , which affects the time he gets out of prison for good behavior.
