Former President Donald Trump, at Waco Regional Airport, Texas, March 25, 2023. EVAN VUCCI/AP
Donald Trump enters history through a door he would rather have avoided. For the first time, a former American president has been indicted by a New York grand jury. The investigation concerns how, as the 2016 presidential election drew near, Donald Trump bought the silence on an X-movie actress he allegedly had sex with. The American press revealed the information late afternoon, Thursday March 30, provoking a political explosion. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office confirmed in the evening that the former president’s attorneys have been contacted to set a date by which he is expected to “deliver” early next week.
This unprecedented moment was to be expected given that Donald Trump preemptively denounced his indictment on March 18, creating confusion about prosecutors’ intentions. Donald Trump, who invoked a “witch hunt” and “political persecution” in a press release on Thursday, is entering an unprecedented phase in his public life. In the coming days he has to submit to having his fingerprints taken and to be photographed as a suspect. A big favorite in the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential election, he’s preparing to put American democracy through another major test of resistance. Here he is leading the Grand Old Party in a campaign against the judiciary following his supporters’ attack on the Capitol in January 2021.
The exact charges against Donald Trump are not known for the time being. Their official release could only come at the time of the former president’s first appearance before a judge who will decide on a possible bail and release, the latter of which experts consider very likely. The origin of this affair is the cash payment of $130,000 made by former lawyer and henchman of Mr. Trump, Michael Cohen, in favor of pornographic star Stormy Daniels.
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She revealed her real name, Stephanie Clifford, when the 2016 presidential election drew near to her affair with Donald Trump, who would have gladly bought her silence with a private contract. When they met at a golf tournament in Nevada in 2006, Mr. Trump was a humble businessman and TV personality that Stormy Daniels was hoping to break in. He was 60, she 27. He had just become a father again, thanks to Melania, his third wife. Stormy Daniels dreamed of appearing on the reality TV show The Apprentice.
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