A grand jury in a New York court voted to indict Donald Trump in a 2016 case in which he bought an adult film actress to remain silent, an unprecedented move for a former president, American media reported Thursday.
• Also read: Threatened with indictment, Trump denounces “election interference” by “thugs”.
The former White House tenant, who dreams of winning it back in 2024, is set to be formally charged in the coming days by the New York State Justice Department and his Manhattan attorney, Alvin Bragg, with paying $130,000 to the actress and porn film director Stormy Daniels, say the New York Times and CNN, citing sources familiar with the matter.
After ten days of America in suspense, that hypothetical criminal indictment against Donald Trump still didn’t appear to come before the end of April this Thursday.
Rumors of a possible indictment against the Republican billionaire swept through the press in early March.
He pulled a political stunt on March 18 by claiming without evidence on his network Truth Social that he would be “arrested” and appearing in a New York court three days later to be charged.
But nothing had happened.
And the country waited 10 days for that possible indictment, a historic fact against a former American president.
appealed to the prosecutor
The Washington Post, Politico and the New York Daily News again on Wednesday, citing sources close to the case, said the judiciary should not rule until April 24.
Since March 20, a grand jury — a panel of citizens with investigative powers that works with prosecutors and votes on charges — has met only twice, and no further calls were planned.
For his part, Donald Trump, who denies “any crime” and any connection with Stormy Daniels, had on Sunday and Monday ruled that the investigation was “dead,” a “fraud” and an “election interference” run by “thugs” prior to the year 2024 presidential elections were staged.
For years, the judiciary has been trying to determine whether the 76-year-old former Republican president was guilty of misrepresentation, a minor felony, or violating campaign finance laws, a felony, by giving money to porn actress Stormy Daniels, real name, Stephanie Clifford paid shortly before her election victory in November 2016.
What sense? So that she remains silent about an alleged extramarital affair 10 years earlier.
Prosecutor Bragg, an elected African-American Democrat, has been accused by Mr. Trump of being an “animal” and “racist” and by Republicans of having a “political motive” in his indictment and denouncing “interference” in the investigation .