The message resonates. On Thursday, Republican billionaire Donald Trump was indicted in a 2016 case of silently buying a porn star and is scheduled to appear in a New York criminal court next week, Tuesday.
An unprecedented historical fact for a former American President who denounced “political persecution”. As of Thursday, after ten days of tense America, that historic indictment still didn’t appear to have to happen before the end of April. Here’s what we know this Friday.
Why this charge?
The former White House tenant, who dreams of winning it back in 2024, is officially indicted by Manhattan’s Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is dependent on the New York State Judiciary, shortly before November 2016 on a count of payment and reimbursement of presidential election, $130,000 to actress and porn director Stormy Daniels. The sum was undeclared in the Republican candidate’s campaign accounts in violation of state election laws and was booked as “legal fees” in the accounts of his New York-based company.
For years the New York City judiciary has been trying to determine whether the 76-year-old former Republican president was guilty of misrepresentation, a minor offense, or violating campaign finance laws, a felony, when he recently paid money to Stormy Daniels had her presidential win in November 2016 to cover up an alleged extramarital relationship dating back to 2006.
The key man on the file is Michael Cohen: Donald Trump’s former attorney-turned-enemy paid Stormy Daniels in 2016 and received a refund. After a prison sentence, he worked on the investigation from the end of 2018 and testified several times before the grand jury
CNN cites around thirty charges against Donald Trump involving fraud to cover up the circulation and accounting of the $130,000 in late 2016. This law and the lawsuits remain “under lock and key” for the time being.
How was the indictment voted on?
In January, Manhattan Democratic Attorney Alvin Bragg entrusted the case to a grand jury. In the United States, a grand jury consists of randomly selected citizens who are tasked with conducting a confidential investigation to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to bring formal charges against a suspect.
After hearing multiple witnesses, the grand jury invited Donald Trump to speak in mid-March, suggesting he was preparing to complete his work. The ex-president refused and at the same time called on his supporters to demonstrate against his next “arrest”.
On Thursday, the grand jury convened at 2 p.m. (6 p.m. GMT) in the presence of three prosecutors in charge of the case, according to the New York Times. After three hours of discussions behind closed doors, he issued an indictment, the charges against which were not made public.
What is the next step ?
Donald Trump must therefore “go” to the court in Manhattan for a judge to read the indictment, be briefly and symbolically “arrested”, photographed and have his fingerprints taken. He must plead guilty or not guilty.
“We expect the indictment hearing to take place on Tuesday,” his attorney, Susan Necheles, told AFP in an email. A spokesman for the local attorney’s office previously said that in defending Donald Trump, he “organized his surrender before the Manhattan District Attorney for an indictment hearing before a Supreme Court,” according to a statement released after the vote. a grand jury – a body of citizens with investigative powers working with prosecutors – in favor of that indictment.
If he refused to show up, he could be arrested and would then have to be “extradited” from Florida, where he lives, to New York, since each state has its own justice system.
One step closer to the process?
It is likely that Donald Trump’s lawyers will engage in a legal guerrilla war to try to invalidate his charges, perhaps arguing that the investigation was incriminating or a technicality.
If they don’t, normal justice envisages three scenarios after an indictment: either the charges are dropped, or the accused can come to terms with the prosecution and agree to plead guilty to avoid a trial and a to receive a lighter sentence, or the judiciary organizes a process, but first has to comply with several procedures with various preliminary hearings. Again, it’s likely that Donald Trump’s attorneys will use all sorts of leverage to delay that deadline.
How did Trump react?
The 45th President of the United States, in a press release, ridiculed “political persecution and interference in the 2024 presidential election.” He denounced a “witch hunt” that would “turn against Biden,” the Democratic president-elect of November 2020, and Donald Trump has been accusing him of “stealing” his win for more than two years.
On his social network Truth Social, the billionaire, who has been messing up the political system and the balance of power in the USA since 2015, torpedoes opponents whom he does not name: “They are chasing me in a wrong way and shamefully because they know me Stand by the American people and not get a fair trial in New York! ’, his majority-democratic hometown.
And his field?
One of Trump’s 2024 Republican rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, called the charges “contradictory to America’s values” and asserted that his state, where the former president resides, has not responded positively “to an extradition request” from the state of New York will respond. The same unwavering support from Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy for whom “the American people will not tolerate this injustice” and an “unprecedented abuse of power” by Attorney Bragg.
“Let’s be clear guys. It’s a communist thing. It’s something that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot blush,” his eldest son Donald Trump Jr. stormed on his streaming show.
The indictment was “Third World worthy,” “an opportunistic act against a political opponent in the middle of an election campaign,” his brother Eric Trump added in a tweet.
And on the side of his opponents?
Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, who has worked with justice for nearly six years, tweeted that she “didn’t want to spill her champagne.” His attorney Clark Brewster said, “No one is above the law.”
Thank you everyone for your support and love! I get so many messages that I can’t reply… I don’t want to spill my champagne either 😜 #Team stormy Merch/autograph orders are pouring in too! Thank you for that too, but allow a few extra days for shipping.
— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 30, 2023
Representing the Democrats, Representative Adam Schiff said “the impeachment and arrest of a former President is unique in all of American history.”
Is this charge a surprise?
In March, the press buzzed with rumors of indictment against the Republican billionaire, surrounded by other legal filings. He had carried out a political coup on March 18 and said on his network Truth Social that he would be “arrested” and appear in New York three days later. But nothing had happened.
After keeping America in suspense, all the newspapers in New York and Washington unanimously affirmed on Wednesday that the judiciary should not decide before April 24. For his part, Donald Trump, who has always denied “any crime” and any connection with Stormy Daniels, had on Sunday called Mr Bragg’s investigation “dead” and a “fraud” orchestrated by “thugs” prior to 2024.
Accused by the former president of being an “animal” and “racist,” in office since January 2022, Justice Bragg, a left-leaning African-American judge, told him he had “created false expectations in the media of his prosecution and.” denounced “interference” in the investigation.
In Manhattan, where the populist ex-president was only able to rally a few dozen supporters last week, it was very quiet around the courthouse and Trump Tower on Thursday evening.
Does that stop him from running for a second term?
Absolutely not. In the United States, a criminally accused or convicted person can run for and be elected to any office. The Constitution provides only one exception to performing an official function: participation in an “insurgency” or “rebellion” against the United States.
Donald Trump, who started in the 2024 presidential race last November, is the subject of a federal judiciary investigation for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, but no charges have been filed against him at the time.