Barricades near Trump Tower, police on high alert, hordes of journalists and some protesters outside the Manhattan prosecutor’s office. New York awaited a probable indictment of Donald Trump on Tuesday, although the hours passed without the certainty of when that decision will finally be made. The former president said last Saturday that he would be arrested this Tuesday as a result of paying a porn actress to buy her silencebut his defense assured that these statements were based on press information and not so much from the prosecution. If charged, the 76-year-old Republican will become the first ex-president to sit on the benchwhich is interpreted by his supporters as an attempt by the Democrats to prevent him from running for re-election in 2024.
waiting for news
According to US media, The jury that will decide whether there is a crime or not could vote on Wednesday but the district attorney of manhattanthe democrat Alvin Bragg, would wait until next week to announce the charges. Bragg did not publicly confirm any plans and the grand jury operates in secret to avoid perjury or witness tampering, making it virtually impossible to know what is going on behind the scenes.
In the United States, prosecutors can present witnesses and evidence to a panel of citizens known as a grand jury, which decides whether charges are warranted. Last week Stormy Daniels cooperated with the grand jury in this case. Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohenwho acknowledged making the payment to Daniels and said he was later reimbursed, also testified before the board. Trump was also invited to testify but declined..
To prepare for the possible arrest of the billionaire, who would have to undergo the ritual of fingerprinting and even be handcuffed, the New York police department placed metal fences in front of the Manhattan courthouse and Trump Tower, on 5th Avenue in New York, anticipating the massive arrival of followers, something that never happened.
Early in the morning, about twenty people, mostly retirees, protested outside the courthouse against the former president and current candidate for the 2024 presidential primaries with signs that read: “Trump is finished” y “No one is above the law”. They also displayed caricatures of the former president behind bars and in a prisoner’s uniform.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters gathered near Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach, South Florida, to express their support. Small groups of supporters gathered along Southern Boulevard, a street that leads to Mar-a-Lago, with banners and large flags in favor of the former president reading “Trump Save America” ​​(“Trump saves America”) o “Trump 2024”in reference to the next elections.
The porn star and the president
Bragg investigation centers on $130,000 paymentin the final stretch of the 2016 election, to the porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence an alleged extramarital relationship that he would have had with the tycoon ten years before and that he always denied. To seduce her, in 2006, Trump told her that she was “special” and offered her an appearance on his show “The Apprentice”, which did not materialize.
In 2011, Daniels first tried to make the details of the encounter public when he tried to sell his testimony to entertainment magazine In Touch for $15,000. The magazine, however, stopped publishing the interview after being threatened with a lawsuit by one of Trump’s closest lawyers, Michael Cohen. According to the actress, a stranger approached her shortly after her in a parking lot in Las Vegas to intimidate her and demand that she forget about Trump.
Daniels remained silent until the real estate mogul won the 2016 Republican primary, at which point she resumed contact with the media to try to monetize her story. Cohen, nicknamed Trump’s “pit bull,” again tried to buy her silence, as he had already done with playmate Karen McDougal. After negotiations, the lawyer paid Daniels $130,000 out of her pocket under a confidentiality agreement signed under the pseudonyms “Peggy Peterson” and “David Dennison.”
Cohen, who testified before the grand jury, confirmed that he had made the payment and that it was later reimbursed. If not properly documented, the payment to Daniels could be considered a misrepresentationwhich could violate the law on electoral financing, a criminal offense punishable by four years in prison. Legal experts say that it will not be easy to prove said crime. However, if he is charged, an eventual trial could take months to take place.
Trump, like so many other times, feels like the victim of a witch hunt. “Our enemies are desperate to stop us because they know we are the only ones who can stop them,” Trump said in a video posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform. The tycoon is the subject of several criminal investigations at both the state and federal levels that could threaten his new run for the White House, including attempts to reverse his loss in the 2020 election in the state of Georgia.
What can happen with Trump?
An impeachment by Trump would start a process that could last several months. In the immediate term, it must be determined what the arrest, or more likely the handing over of Trump to the authorities, would look like, given the non-violent nature of the charges and the fact that he is a former president.
“This is unprecedented and there is no defined procedure”said former US Secret Service agent Robert McDonald, now a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven. According to the expert, the Secret Service, in charge of protecting high-ranking dignitaries, will coordinate with the Bragg prosecutor’s office so that Trump appears in court without his arrival becoming a “show.”
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted Saturday that he expects Trump to “voluntarily appear in court, be fingerprinted and searched, and released on bail.” Given Trump’s prominence and his ongoing presidential bid, the judge will likely not consider the former president a flight risk and Trump will be able to leave after arraignment, posting bail if necessary.
The Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Grahama Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Tuesday that a possible arrest of Trump “would blow up the country”. For his part, the President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorcame out in defense of the ex-president by declaring in his usual press conference: “Trump is declaring that he is going to be arrested for an allegedly love affair. If that were the case, then everyone would know that It is so that it does not appear on the ballot“.