The New York grand jury indictment of Donald R.C. Trump: a candidate for the presidency whose crimes will be prosecuted
A New York grand jury has voted to indict former President Donald Trump. The charges relate to Trump’s part in making payments to Daniels. The outcome is still under seal, but this is just one of many legal threats Trump faces in his post-presidency. In a statement released this evening, Trump says he is innocent. To talk more about what this could mean legally and politically for the former president, I am joined now by Kim Wehle. She’s a former U.S. attorney and a law professor at the University of Baltimore. Kim, welcome to the show.
Bragg was able to prosecute a tax fraud conspiracy. He obtained convictions against Trump’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and two Trump corporate entities, for evading taxes by compensating Weisselberg and others with undeclared benefits like a luxury apartment and cars. Checks signed by Trump were presented at trial, but the former president was never charged.
The decision is sure to send shockwaves across the country, pushing the American political system – which has never seen one of its ex-leaders confronted with criminal charges, let alone while running again for president – into uncharted waters.
Trump released a statement in response to the indictment claiming it was “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
The former president believes that the witch-hunt will backfire on Joe Biden. “The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Mr. Trump completely transformed the relationship between the presidency and the rule of law, often asserting that a president was above the law. So it is appropriate that his actions as president and as a candidate should now be formally weighed by judges and juries, with the possibility of criminal penalties on the line. Mr. Trump badly damaged America’s political and legal institutions and threatened them again with calls for widespread protests once he is indicted. But those institutions have proved to be strong enough to hold him accountable for that harm.
Trump was caught off guard by the grand jury’s decision to indict him, according to a person who spoke directly with him While the former president was bracing for an indictment last week, he began to believe news reports that a potential indictment was weeks – or more – away.
Trump will have to go through certain processes when a charge is brought against him. But his status as a former president who is currently running again for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 will undoubtedly inject additional security and practical concerns around the next steps in his case.
His finances seem to be a bigger deal. The Manhattan District Attorney did not charge Trump with tax crimes. Trump has been sued by the New York attorney general in civil court based on some of that evidence.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is planning to launch an investigation into the matter after Trump and his GOP competitors condemned the district attorney’s office over the impending indictment.
“Outrageous,” tweeted House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the Republican committee chairmen who has demanded Bragg testify before Congress about the Trump investigation.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, called the indictment “completely unprecedented” and said it is “a catastrophic escalation in the weaponization of the justice system.”
“We have a judge. We have jurors. There is appeals. I think that justice will be done in the end. It will show up if he is guilty. But if not, I think that will be shown too,” Bacon told CNN.
A witness testifying against Cohen and Pecker in an investigation of a campaign to investigate sexual assault allegations from a woman under Donald Trump’s influence
“Hey, Juana, by means ofANDREA BERNSTEIN.” So we don’t know exactly, but we do know the outlines. Late in the 2016 election, the Trump campaign received word that an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, was considering going public, claiming she’d had an affair with Donald Trump, which he denies. But this was after the “Access Hollywood” tape was released, with Trump recorded talking about sexual assault. So Michael Cohen, his lawyer at the time, became concerned the campaign couldn’t take another blow and paid Daniels to keep quiet. And after that, Trump, by then in the White House, personally reimbursed Cohen, while his company logged the payments – falsely – as a legal retainer. That is believed to be the alleged crime.
The prosecutors asked at least one witness a question about the $150,000 payment made by the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with President Donald Trump, people said.
The witness was asked about other stories bought by American Media Inc. – which publishes the Enquirer – and later killed. The people said that Trump had a history of buying negative stories and planting positive ones. Pecker testified Monday before the Manhattan grand jury for the second time.
It wasn’t clear if prosecutors used the payment as a part of their investigation or if they used it to establish a pattern of entering into deals.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to numerous federal charges, including making illegal campaign contributions in the form of buying women’s silence about their alleged relationships with Trump.
The agreement said Cohen, Pecker and “one or more members of the campaign” met in August 2015. At that meeting, “Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate’s relationships with women by, among other things, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased, and their publication avoided.”
A misguided prosecution of the alleged misconduct in the DA office: Michael Cohen’s lawyer sued for allegedly lying to the public about his affair with Donald Trump
Public hearings are usually the first appearances. If an arrest of a defendant is not needed, arrangements are made with them or their lawyers for a voluntary surrender to law enforcement. With their first appearance in court, defendants are usually booked and finger-printed. A plea is expected when the first appearance is an arraignment.
Trump will likely be allowed to turn himself in voluntarily, and multiple sources told CNN the former president is expected to appear in court Tuesday for his arraignment.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for keeping her quiet about her alleged affair with Trump.
He paid $130,000 to Daniels to keep her from talking about the affair with Trump after the election. He helped arrange for the National Enquirer publisher to pay $150,000 to Karen McDougal to kill her story about an affair with Trump. Trump denied an affair with McDougal.
But prosecutors soon hit another obstacle. After they subpoenaed Mr. Trump’s tax returns and other financial records, he sued to prevent his accountants from producing the records.
The two lead prosecutors on the case quit. One wrote in his resignation letter, “a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong. I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest.”
Bragg is presenting witnesses to a grand jury. Earlier this month, Trump himself was invited to testify — seen as a final step before an indictment. The leading candidate in the Republican Party is being targeted by the political witch-Hunt according to the former president.
Many legal experts say they think the criminal case Bragg is likely to bring could be tough to prove in court. While Cohen was convicted under federal law, New York state statutes might be an awkward fit for the alleged crimes.
Trump’s actions run afoul of New York law, according to Mark Pomerantz, a veteran prosecutor who helped lead the DA office’s probe that started under Vance and who later resigned.
Pomerantz told NPR’s Fresh Air last month that the money was not for legal services. “That’s how the payments were documented. The creation of false business records is a crime in New York.
Cohen said that he’s being shown all around and pointing to different paintings. “And he says to me something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, Michael. Your reimbursement checks are due January and February. They were shipped from New York. It takes a while to get through the White House system.
“As he promised, I received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter,” Cohen said, referring to the payment that combined two monthly installments.
Do extremists want a criminal trial? SUMMERS: The moment of a decisive victory in the U.S. Supreme Court
SUMMERS: This moment is historic, and we should just be clear here. It’s unprecedented, really. But Andrea, based on your reporting, do you have any sense so far of how you believe that a criminal trial will play out in this case?
Trump’s social media response is very heated. He writes, in part, (reading) this is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history. I believe this witch hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden. The American people realize exactly what the radical left Democrats are doing here.
A mug shot and fingerprints are typical of this process. It’s likely that his protective detail would move through the building with Trump and not be a public event.
New York grand jury indictment of Donald Trump: It’s a Class E felony, right? A candid conversation with Wong and Wehle
SUMMERS: And of course, this is an evolving story. We’re looking forward to hear more from you and your correspondents over the next few days. Thank you, NPR’sAndrea Bernstein.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. NPR has an audio record of its programming.
FLORIDO: We’ve been speaking with former U.S. attorney and law professor Kim Wehle about the New York grand jury’s decision to indict former President Donald Trump. Thank you.
WEHLE: I’m not, I’ve been fretting over it for many days now. It’s good to have it actually happen. We will see the actual terms of the indictment. Because until we see that, it’s very hard to really do a fair analysis of it, I think.
FLORIDO: Yeah, I noted that we don’t yet know the specific charges that he faces, but you know the legal code. What charges could the former president be facing?
Wehle. According to the New York Penal Code, Section 175.10, what people are expecting is a violation of the first degree. It is against the law to lie about business records. It makes it a felony if that was done with an intent to commit another crime. I think Michael Cohen’s payoff of adult film star Ms. Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election is a crime. Donald Trump paid Michael Cohen a fee to represent him in return for no legal services being rendered. So the question is, why would you hide that if it didn’t matter to the 2016 presidential election and how voters were going to assess the presidential candidates, which is quite serious, even if the charge itself does not seem to reach kind of the heights that some people would expect for a former president.
Wehle. Well, it’s a Class E felony under Manhattan – New York law, so I believe it’s up to four years in prison. I think that’s true, that’s way down the line. We have to go through a lot of obstacles. Due process is attached to Mr. Trump. It’s important to distinguish political stakes from legal stakes so that the question isn’t treated like a long-off question, for example.
FlaorIDO: The Manhattan district attorney is taking on this case. His predecessor looked into these alleged hush-money payments also, but did not pursue charges, which raises a question, I think, about the strength of this case. What do you think?
Wehle. I think that at that point, Cy Vance was considering whether Donald Trump would be included in the indictment and conviction of the Trump Organization for tax fraud and other crimes. And Mr. Bragg took some heat politically for not pursuing that, so, I mean, you could argue, you know, he was less aggressive on one, more aggressive on the other. The grand jury that indicted him was the voters of Manhattan that chose him, and that’s why all of this is about them. If it goes to trial, other voters of Manhattan will make determinations about whether he is guilty or not.
It’s FLORIDO. We have 20 seconds left. We don’t know how long it will take for these charges to be announced, but can you please give us a brief description of what will happen next?
WEHLE: Well, he – I mean, he will either be arrested or would show up for an arraignment, and then he would enter a plea. I worked on the Whitewater investigation a long time ago. There were a number of special circumstances when Bill Clinton was before a grand jury.
WEHLE: …That were given to him. If Donald Trump accepted them, I anticipate that he would be treated the same as a former president.
All of this plays into the air of grievance Trump, a New York billionaire, has puffed into existence that he’s used to propel his political fortunes. He’s argued with his base of supporters that the liberals are trying to derail his presidential campaign in order to get at him and that the system is rigged.
MONTANARO: You know, you’d think that an indictment would hurt someone running for office, but Trump seems to have insulated himself with his base, you know, convincing them that these are trumped up charges. The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll shows that a majority of people think criminal investigations into him are fair. This is important for the 2016 presidential primary because 8 in 10 Republicans agree that Donald Trump agrees with him and call the investigations a witch hunt. You know, a Quinnipiac poll out yesterday found that a majority of people say criminal charges should disqualify Trump from running for president. A majority of Republicans don’t agree with that.
Trump’s campaign against the president: trumps’ historic indictment comes during his presidency primary run and why he shouldn’t be president
Top officials accused of wrongdoing have historically found a way out of jail. Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon before he left office. Spiro Agnew resigned as Nixon’s vice president after he was implicated in a corruption scandal. Agnew made a plea deal and avoided jail time. Aaron Burr, also a former vice president, narrowly escaped a treason conviction. He left the country.
So that’s a pretty big wild card, especially when, according to our poll, a significant number of people ranked preserving democracy as high on their list of most important issues facing the country. Persuadable voters are the same as that. They ranked preserving democracy second behind the economy. Trump’s brand, we know, has been toxic in competitive states in the last few elections, and he’s at risk with independents. Majorities don’t have a good opinion of him and they think he shouldn’t be president.
MONTANARO: Very tough to say because 80% of them say they have a favorable opinion of Trump. Three-quarters say they want him to be president, and there are not any Republicans who are really making a sustained effort against him.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/30/1167254662/trumps-historic-indictment-comes-during-his-presidential-primary-run
The Indictment of Donald Trump, aided by the Russian Operation “Witch Hunt” and the Prigozhin Era
FlaorIDO: This is a developing story. We’re expecting to hear more from you over the next few days. Thanks, Domenico Montanaro.
Daniels responded to questions and has agreed to make herself available for questioning, according to her lawyer, who sent a message saying she had met with prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
She wrote a book in order to prove that her story about having sex with Trump is true, according to her attorney.
Looking back at the result of the election, it’s easy to think that it was inevitable because Clinton was weak and voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania had forgotten about her. The indictment of Trump is an important historical corrective, that shows how the US must reckon with the fact that Trump won despite being aided by two separate criminal conspiracies.
Though he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes in the 2016 election, he was helped by narrow victories in three states: 10,7000 voters in Michigan, 46,765 in Pennsylvania, and 22,178 in Wisconsin. That effort was funded in part by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is now behind the brutal combat of his Wagner Group mercenary army in Ukraine, which targeted US social media companies and activists on the ground. According to the US Department of Justice’s exhaustive report, in the second arm of the Russian operation, the military intelligence service GRU hacked top Democratic officials, leaked their emails, and shifted the national narrative around Clinton and other Democrats. (Not to mention that this gave rise to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and, arguably, QAnon.)
Even as Trump appears to unify the Republican Party behind him through his claims of “witch hunts” and conspiracy, Americans have lined up against him and the GOP, over and over the past several years.
The Radical Left Democrats have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the men and women of this Country ever since I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower.
It’s all right off the best hits, including the Russia investigation, the two impeachments, the FBI search of his Florida home and the other three criminal investigations stemming from his conduct.
If Trump’s convicted, it will be harder for him to claim the charges were frivolous and politically motivated. If he’s found not guilty, Trump would boast of being vindicated. The majority of the Senate found him guilty on January 6 despite the fact that the investigation didn’t exonerate him.
Donald Trump’s Big Bad Bad: The Case Against a Republican Candidate in 2024 (and Its Not) For A Presidential Reelection
Republicans had total control of power in Washington when Donald Trump took office. Trump was in the White House, and Republicans were in charge of both the House and Senate.
The GOP lost many key races in swing states and competitive districts in the 2022, when most of Trump’s supporters lost their seats. Instead of making big gains, as is usually the case for the president’s party in a first midterm, Democrats actually expanded their majority in the Senate. Republicans took back the House, but more narrowly than they had anticipated.
Republicans have now lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That’s the worst streak for either party in their histories since the Republican Party’s creation in the 19th Century.
That was evident this week in the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll that found 6 in 10 don’t want Trump to be president again, including two-thirds of independents.
The only way that could change, according to Republican strategists – and there’s no guarantee it would even work – is if other Republican candidates home in on Trump’s political vulnerabilities, including that he can only serve four more years, paint his legal troubles as emblematic of the chaos and drama that surrounds Trump and make that argument clear to the GOP base.
But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, took to Twitter after the news of the DA’s request for Trump to surrender to say that his state would not help arrest and extradite the former president, should it come to that.
Though DeSantis has yet to announce his candidacy, he’s widely considered to be a top 2024 Republican presidential contender — and a threat to Trump’s bid for reelection.
The Ex-President’s response to the New York grand jury indictment as political persecution: “I’m trying to do a political spectacle in the state of Florida”
The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the matter and continued his attacks on Bragg and other Democrats following news of the indictment.
The former president had first been asked to surrender Friday in New York, his lawyer said, but his defense said more time was needed and he’s expected in court on Tuesday.
In some way, the former president’s initial court appearance will look like that of other defendants, and in others, it will be very different.
That’s one of many big questions here. Republicans in congress have taken to supporting Trump and attacking the district attorney for her political motives.
As part of the response to the indictment, Trump and his team will have surrogates hitting Democrats, the investigation, and Bragg in different media, as they try to shape the public narrative according to sources close to Trump.
Even if the charge doesn’t reach the heights that some people would expect from a former president, wehle said it’s quite serious.
NPR can’t confirm if Trump is still in Florida. The two reliable flight tracker have not been updated on his private plane in the last five days.
According to an account from POLITICO, he mentioned that he wasn’t interested in getting involved in a made up circus due to George Soros’ campaign donations. “He’s trying to do a political spectacle … I’ve got real issues I’ve got to deal with here in the state of Florida.”
In a statement Thursday, the former president dismissed the Manhattan grand jury’s decision to indict him as political persecution and election interference.
The Donald Trump Indictment Case: Answers to Questions & Answers Frequently Seen by Thick Individuals in the News and in e-Mail
Kevin McCarthy said that Bragg has damaged the country in an effort to interfere with the election. Ronna McDaniel is the chairperson of the Republican National Committee.
The Democrats had a call for blind justice which was one of their party’s messages.
When it comes to the rich and powerful, a nation of laws has to hold them accountable. Especially when they do,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a former impeachment manager.
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and a key witness in the case, also said the indictment shows that “no one is above the law,” but took the moment to call for opinion on the matter to be decided in court.
It’s important to note that Trump is facing scrutiny in other investigations that could lead to charges of their own.
Could he still run for president? Why would the adult-film star case move before any of the ones about protecting democracy? How could you possibly find an impartial jury?
What’s below are answers to some of the questions we’ve been getting – versions of these were emailed in by subscribers of the What Matters newsletter – about the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
He works for the Manhattan district attorney, as well as the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney, and the Department of Justice.
What stops Donald Trump from running while indicted or even convicted: Term limits, term limits, insurrection, rebellion, and classified documents
“Nothing stops Trump from running while indicted, or even convicted,” the University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen told me in an email.
There are some things in the Constitution that aren’t applicable to Trump in the cases that are considered closest to a formal indictment.
Term limits. The 22nd Amendment states that anyone who has been a president twice and won his or her own election can’t run again. Since Trump lost the election, that doesn’t apply to him.
Impeachment. A person who is convicted of a high crime and is impeached by the House will not be able to serve in office again. Trump, although twice impeached by the House during his presidency, was also twice acquitted by the Senate.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
The indictment in New York City with regard to the hush-money payment to an adult-film star has nothing to do with rebellion or insurrection. Nor do potential federal charges with regard to classified documents.
Potential charges in Fulton County, Georgia, with regard to 2020 election meddling or at the federal level with regard to the January 6, 2021, insurrection could perhaps be construed by some as a form of insurrection. But that is an open question that would have to work its way through the courts. The next election is just around the corner.
If he was convicted of a felony in New York, Trump would be barred from voting in his adoptive home state of Florida, at least until he had served out a potential sentence.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/politics/trump-indictment-questions-answered-what-matters/index.html
When Donald Trump Cames to America, he Kills CARROLL, but he Hehes Heavier than He Thinks
The payment to Stormy Daniels happened a long time ago. Trump thinks the statute of limitations has run out. Lawyers could argue the clock stopped when Trump left New York to become president in 2017.
As I write this, we don’t know exactly what those charges are or the degree to which, as many have speculated, they rely on an untested legal theory. But it is a mistake to treat this indictment — which, according to The New York Times, includes more than two dozen counts — as tangential to Trump’s other misdeeds. The conduct at issue is related to the question of whether Donald Trump cheated to win the election.
The Justice Department investigation into election interference in Georgia as well as his treatment of classified data seem to be consequential.
But these cases are being pursued by different entities at different paces in different governments – New York City; Fulton County, Georgia; and the federal government.
Ahead of the indictment, one federal law enforcement source told CNN’s John Miller that Trump’s Secret Service detail was actively engaged with authorities in New York City about how this arrest process would work if Trump was ultimately indicted.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”
The New York State Unified Court System’s trial juror’s handbook explains the “voir dire” process by which jurors are selected. Those accepted by both the prosecution and defense as being free of “bias or personal knowledge that could hinder his or her ability to judge a case impartially” must take an oath to act fairly and impartially.
From CNN’s Dan Berman: The judge handling the civil lawsuit of E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump says jurors’ personal information will be kept confidential and other security measures will be taken to protect them, citing the former president’s history of attacking the legal system.
TRUMP KILLED CARROLL after he denied the rape. Trump denies wrongdoing. Berman says that media organizations oppose keeping the identities of jurors anonymous.
If he is indicted for any of these charges, I don’t expect Trump to go to jail. “Jail time would only come if he were convicted and sentenced to jail time.”
The idea that Trump would ever get a glimpse of a jail cell is too far off. Hasen said the Secret Service would have to arrange for his protection in jail. The logistics of that are mind-boggling. Would agents be placed into cells on either side of him? Would they dress as inmates or guards?
“Judges have very broad discretion in whether to sentence a person to prison and for how long,” said CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig in a video explaining why it’s difficult to send powerful people to prison. He said that a former president’s conviction could be appealed and it could go all the way up to the Supreme Court.
We got this question several times, but itseems too premature and unprecedented to be answerable at the moment. Let’s let the legal process play out. Clearly the Secret Service is responsible for the former president’s safety, even if that is in jail.
They think of this as an administrative move where they have to protect Donald Trump from point A to point B and leave. They are not playing that active role that we typically see them in.”
The New York Times published a report prior to the indictment and based on anonymous sources close to Trump that suggested he is, either out of bravado or genuine delight, relishing the idea of having to endure a “perp walk” in New York City. The “perp walk,” by the way, is the public march of a perpetrator into a police office for processing.
“He has repeatedly tried to show that he is not experiencing shame or hiding in any way, and I think you’re going to see that,” the Times reporter and CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman said on the network earlier in March.
In an appearance on CNN before the indictment, the former chief of staff to Mike Pence said there was a part of him that thought this was a political asset. “Because he can use it to paint the other, more serious legal jeopardy he faces either in Georgia or the Department of Justice, as they’re politically motivated.”
But Short argued voters will tire of the baggage Trump is carrying, particularly if he faces additional potential indictments in the federal and Georgia investigations.
The case of Donald J. Vance: A grand jury investigation into the investigation of a failed election campaign by the ex-president, John Doe
For nearly five years, confidential records have identified a continued grand jury inquiry in Manhattan as examining the business and affairs of John Doe.
The assistant district attorneys he assigned did not get far: The federal prosecutors who charged Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Vance’s office to stand down until their own investigation was complete, which took nearly a year.
Mr. Trump had often drawn scrutiny in his long career as a businessman, but one thing stood out to Mr. Vance’s prosecutors: his annual financial statements. The inflated value of his hotels, golf clubs and other properties were the work of fiction the statements were a grand work of.
Mr. Pomerantz and another leader of the inquiry, Carey R. Dunne, pushed ahead with the investigation into Mr. Trump’s financial statements. That inquiry had been joined and jump-started by lawyers from the office of Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who had been conducting a separate civil inquiry.
The president is under criminal investigation for trying to influence the outcome of the 2020 election. He attempted a coup whenever he failed to face consequences for violating rules meant to protect the electoral system. He escaped conviction for attempting to overthrow the democratic system he was sworn to protect, but now sees Jan. 6 as a celebration of rioters at his campaign rally.
Still, we do know that the 23-person grand jury heard evidence in the case, including testimony from Daniels and Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. At least 12 members (a majority) decided there was enough reasonable cause to believe that Trump committed a crime.
Marritz thinks that it’s likely that Trump will have to go through the usual steps of a court appearance in order to get a fair trial.
“It’s gonna involve lawyers, cops, the Secret Service, the ex-president himself,” Marritz says. “Trump is not known for hiding from cameras, and I’m certain there will be a lot of cameras there.”
The case against Donald Trump: A far-off question and a long way from Manhattan to the U.S. Supreme Court, says Kim Wehle
Behind closed doors, the processing would take place. The defendants usually make their way to a judge to hear the charges against them.
Douglas Brinkley says that it’s the first time that it’s certain that the former president of the United States will be having a mugshot and being fingerprints. We are going for a very rocky spring.
But he’s still entitled to the same due process as everyone else, says Kim Wehle, a former U.S. attorney and now a law professor at the University of Baltimore.
She told All Things Considered there are plenty of hurdles to get through first after considering the potential charges against him and penalties they would carry.
“There are a lot of procedural, evidentiary and constitutional protections in place to make sure that that far-off question is fairly adjudicated,” Wehle adds.
Matthew Galluzzo is a former prosecutor in the New York County District Attorney’s Office and he says that a possible conviction comes down to more than just the evidence.
And Trump, who won 22.6% of New York City ballots in 2022, is widely unpopular in Manhattan — with Galluzzo calling him “possibly the most despised person on the island.”
“If I had to pick which side to be on, and I had to win to save my life, I would probably choose to be on the prosecution’s side simply because the jury pool in Manhattan is so incredibly against Donald Trump,” he adds.
Most similar cases would probably take a year to get to trial, Galluzzo says. He expects that Trump’s strategy will be to delay that process as much as possible.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167447880/trump-indictment-next-steps
The Taxi Manipulation of Donald J. Trump’s Indictment to a New Class of State-Formation Infractions
“They’re not gonna make him an offer that he would accept,” he adds. I think he wants that public stage to play the victim, so that he can have an audience.
Trump won’t accept a plea deal in the indictment brought by a Manhattan grand jury, but he will file legal challenges to it, according to his attorney.
When asked if he expected to bring the case to a trial, he said that he wasn’t sure because he had legal challenges to contend with.
Meanwhile, Trump attorney Jim Trusty said Friday he expects that the former president’s legal team will file motions to dismiss his indictment before a trial could potentially get underway.
I think you’ll see several motions to dismiss, one or the other of which is going to be talking about stacking a federal crime into a state crime and the intent to defraud. That is part of the false record keeping charges. That’s just not present here,” Trusty told CNN This Morning.
If it is true that Trump has been charged with more than 30 counts related to business fraud, it means that they’ve taken every transaction, even though he does not know the nature of the charges.