A New York grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump in connection with a $130,000 hush-hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, his attorney told CNBC.
Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told NBC News that Trump is expected to surrender to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office early next week. Trump is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday, according to Susan Necheles, another Trump lawyer. That is subject to change.
Trump is the first former president to be charged with a crime, a development that will reverberate across the country. The indictment comes as he is the leading contender seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office confirmed the indictment Thursday evening.
“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan DA’s Office for arraignment in a Supreme Court lawsuit, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided once a date is selected. arraignment,” said a spokesman for Bragg’s office.
The number of charges Trump faces in the indictment was not disclosed Thursday. And it is not known whether the indictment is limited to conduct related to the payment to Daniels or whether it also includes conduct surrounding a separate payment of money to former Playboy model Karen McDougal by the publisher of The National Enquirer. Trump’s lawyers told CNBC on Thursday night that they were not aware of the charges.
have fun blasted the decision, called it “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.” Only Wednesday, he told a post on social media that he had “earned such respect with this grand jury.”
The charge stems from a district attorney’s investigation into how the Trump Organization recorded reimbursements to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after Cohen paid Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, to keep her quiet about an alleged ‘y intercourse she said they had with Trump. in 2006.
Follow our live coverage of the New York grand jury vote at sue former President Donald Trump.
Trump was filming his TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” during that alleged tryst, and was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, who gave birth to their son, Barron, a few months earlier.
The Trump Organization described in business records the reimbursement to Cohen as a legal expense.
Falsifying business records is generally a misdemeanor under New York law, but can be elevated to a felony if the false statement is made to cover up another crime.
Trump has denied having sex with Daniels or doing any wrongdoing.
“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” Trump said in a statement. “Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – implicating a completely innocent man in an act of blatant Election Interference.”
Tacopina and Necheles said: “President Trump has been impeached. He did not commit any crime.”
“We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court,” defense lawyers said.
The indictment, which will be prosecuted by Bragg’s office, is the first of what could lead to several criminal charges against Trump, the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump is also under investigation by the US Department of Justice in two separate criminal cases. One relates to his efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election when he made false claims of widespread ballot fraud in that year’s popular vote. Another investigation focused on Trump’s removal of government records from the White House, and whether he obstructed justice by keeping them at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida., for more than a year as government officials sought their return.
A state prosecutor in Atlanta is also separately investigating Trump and some of his allies in their attempt to tip Georgia officials over his loss to Biden in the state in 2020.
Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, March 25, 2023.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Cohen, in a statement to NBC News, said: “For the first time in our Nation’s history, a President (current or former) of the United States has been charged with the presumption of innocence; as provided by the due process clause. “
“However, I take comfort in proving the adage that no one is above the law; not even a former President,” Cohen said. “Today’s indictment is not the end of this chapter; but rather, just the beginning. Now that the charges have been filed, it is better to let the indictment speak for itself. The two things I want to say at the time that this. Is accountability important and I stand by my testimony and the evidence that I gave to” the Manhattan district attorney, he said.
Manhattan’s prosecution of Trump comes more than four years after Cohen, who served him faithfully for years before that, turned on Trump and began cooperating with federal, state and local officials. law enforcement in New York.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal criminal charges that included campaign finance violations for both Daniels’ payment and a separate payment he facilitated to McDougal, the former Playboy model, to purchase the her silence on a relationship she says she began with Trump in 2006.
The Federal Election Commission in 2021 fined the publisher of The National Enquirer $187,500 for “knowingly and willfully” violating the campaign law by paying McDougal a $150,000 “catch and kill” fee to buy his story and bury it before the 2016 election.
Michael Cohen, former lawyer of former US President Donald Trump, arrives at the New York Courthouse in New York City, US, March 13, 2023.
Eduardo Munoz | Reuters
Cohen said the payments were designed to protect Trump’s chances in that election, when he faced Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump escaped punishment from the FEC.
Cohen met 20 times with investigators from the DA’s office before testifying over two days last week before a grand jury in Manhattan Criminal Court. That panel began meeting in late January and heard testimony from multiple witnesses before Cohen.
Trump and several Republican elected officials have accused Bragg, a Democrat, of pursuing the investigation to hurt him politically.
Bragg’s focus on the Daniels payment in recent months has come as a surprise, given that it was considered by many to be the weakest possible criminal case against Trump in an investigation that began four years ago under Bragg’s predecessor as DA, Cyrus Vance Jr.
Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels speaks in US Federal Court with her lawyer Michael Avenatti (R) on April 16, 2018, in Lower Manhattan, New York.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | AFP | Getty Images
In February 2022, the two top prosecutors working on the investigation quit after Bragg indicated he was suspending the investigation.
At the time, that investigation focused on Cohen’s allegations that Trump and the Trump Organization reported different values for the same real estate assets to lower their tax burden and insurance costs. and to maximize the amount of loans against them, among other things..
One of the prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz, in his resignation letter said Trump was “guilty of multiple felony violations,” related to “the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition,” which “Oh! It’s wrong.”
Attorney General Letitia James in September filed a civil suit seeking at least $250 million in punitive damages from Trump, his company, and three of his adult children, alleging massive fraud in financial statements.
James’ lawsuit, which is headed to trial later this year, seeks to permanently bar Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump from serving as officers of a New York company and permanently ban Trump companies named in the suit. from doing business in New York state.
In December, a Manhattan jury convicted two Trump Organization subsidiaries of multiple crimes related to a scheme that began in 2005 sought to avoid paying taxes on executive compensation in the form of perks including free apartments and luxury car to then-chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.
Trump was not personally charged in that case, but “he knew what was going on,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Trump subsidiaries convicted in the case were fined $1.6 million for the scheme in January at sentencing.
Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to that charge in August, was sentenced in January to five months in prison. He is scheduled to be released from the notorious Rikers Island jail on April 19, making time for his sentence for good behavior.
