The building that houses the criminal courts of Manhattan, in the 100 from the calle Center in the downtown of the city, is preparing to become this Tuesday the epicenter of the political and legal earthquake unleashed in the United States after the indictment, on Thursday, of Donald Trump. If the hopeful for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination uses the tactics and strategies with which he has used to deal with problems with the law since he began facing them in the 1970s as a real estate businessman, the earthquake can last for months.
At the moment everything is ready for the first impact. Trump, who is this weekend at his private residence at the club he owns at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, plans to fly in Monday night from Florida to LaGuardia airport in New York. Pass to night at trump tower on Fifth Avenue, where police presence and protection have intensified since Thursday.
On Tuesday morning, his entourage, which includes secret service agents in charge of his security, is scheduled to arrive between 1:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. at the prosecutor’s office from the Manhattan district led by Democrat Alvin Bragg, where Trump will surrender. Earlier, at noon, the New York Republican Youth Club has called a “peaceful” protest in his favor in the square in front of the judicial facilities, in which the presence of the congresista radical Marjorie Taylor-Greene.
Trump will be processed and booked before being taken to court to be formally charged. According to NBC sources, that imputation will take place at 2:15 p.m. approximately and will take place on the fifteenth floor of the building, which will be emptied, and in the same room where Harvey Weinstein was tried and convicted in 2020.
The session will be chaired by state Supreme Court judge Juan Merchana magistrate born in Colombia who Trump has attacked (“He hates me”he wrote on social networks) and that he already presided over the recent trial that ended with a conviction for tax fraud for two entities of the Trump Organization, in addition to a guilty plea from the financial adviser, Allen Weisselberg, And it will be at that moment when Trump and his lawyers will hear the charges against the former president.
At least one felony charge
Although since the grand jury vote on Thursday and until that moment they remain sealed, according to anonymous sources cited by the US media they contain 30+ business fraud charges. Those charges would be linked to the falsification of documents to hide as alleged fees for withholding Michael Cohen’s legal services the reimbursement in several checks of the $130,000 that Trump’s lawyer paid in October 2016, shortly before the 2016 presidential elections. , to Stephanie Clifford, known by her stage name in the porn industry, Stormy Daniels, to keep quiet about the sexual relationship she alleges she had with Trump in 2006.
The payment to Daniels itself is not illegal, but document forgery is a misdemeanor in New York, and can be elevated to a felony if it can be shown that it was made to commit or conceal a crime. And according to the Associated Press agency, at least one of the charges in the statement against Trump is for a Serious felonywhich under the New York penal code can be punished with a sentence of between one and four years in jail. What is not known is what crime it would be, although the main theory is that Bragg has linked the forgery with violation of campaign finance laws.
Trump’s lawyers have already announced that will plead not guilty. It will almost certainly remain in freedom on your own word, because New York law does not allow the possibility of seeking bail when there are no violent crimes. And it is planned that return the same Tuesday night to Florida.
More than a year on average
What will start from that moment will be a lengthy judicial process. If already habitually criminal proceedings in New York take on average more than a year from the early stages instruction until the start of the trial, in the case of Trump, they run into someone accustomed to using delaying tactics. And in this case they could favor him politically, since they would contribute to keeping their prosecution as a central issue as the internal struggle is waged in the Republican Party to position itself in the face of the 2024 primaries. In addition, it continues to serve you to fill your chests. only in the 24 hours after being charged, As reported by his campaign in an email, Trump raised more than four million dollars. More than 25% came from new donors, according to the campaign, and the average contribution was $34.
Trump’s lawyers have announced that they will immediately file motions and the first one could try that the case be directly dismissed. Another lawyer for the former president, who represents him in the federal investigation studying his handling of classified documents, has said that they should be expected “in a matter of days or weeks, not months.”
Many more enter the deck of cards with which to delay the process. The former president’s lawyers have also suggested that they will try to have the action of the grand jury reviewed. You could also try to find a change of scenery alleging the alleged difficulty in finding an impartial jury in New York, a dominantly Democratic city. They would also have options try to lower the chargesThat recuse or the judge or declassify the tax.