At 2:28 p.m. on April 4 (local time), former US President Donald Trump entered the courtroom in New York City, USA, after being indicted by a grand jury in New York state on March 30. The New York State Police Department, the US Secret Service and other government agencies are on high alert amid the political turmoil surrounding these lawsuits.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office explained the alleged criminal conduct in legal filing statements accompanying their indictment: “In furtherance of their criminal conspiracy, the participants violated election laws and filed fictitious business records for numerous New York City businesses.”
All crimes from light to heavy
The 34 counts in the indictment are typically considered misdemeanors in New York state law but are being charged as felonies in this case because they are believed to have been committed in furtherance of a larger crime — in this case, the larger crime of putting Donald Trump in office through unlawful means. These crimes would all be considered Class E felonies under U.S. law and could result in a penalty of up to four years in prison under New York state law.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told reporters at a press conference after the arraignment that the case is part of the attorney general's office's mission to prosecute white-collar crime.
“Accurate and truthful business records are obviously always important in all aspects,” said Mr. Bragg. “But they are especially important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world .”
The indictment stems from Bragg’s investigation into hush money payments made before the 2016 election to cover up a decade-long pattern of behavior. Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s lawyer at the time and now a fierce critic, testified that Donald Trump secretly reimbursed him for those payments.
Mr. Trump denies these and other crimes. His lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told CNN on Sunday that Mr. Trump would “proudly and loudly plead not guilty.”
Donald Trump is the first former US president to be indicted.
Difficulties for Mr. Trump
Trump will now face the criminal case even as he seeks the Republican nomination in 2024. It comes as he also faces investigations into his efforts to change the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia, as well as several federal special counsel investigations into those efforts and his handling of government records. Any of those investigations could lead to criminal charges.
Mr Trump is also facing several civil lawsuits from the New York attorney general alleging he manipulated property valuations, and an allegation from an author that he raped her, which he has denied.
He said the indictment, along with related investigations and lawsuits, were baseless and part of a rival party effort to defeat him. Bragg, Georgia Attorney General Fani Willis, and New York Attorney General Letitia James are all Democrats. Special Counsel Jack Smith is politically independent.
The New York prosecution alone has sparked a national debate and a confrontation between Republican and Democratic leaders, including a confrontation between Bragg and House Republicans at a hearing to testify about his investigation. As local authorities prepare to bring Trump to trial, the New York Young Republicans have proposed a peaceful protest for Trump at the courthouse on Tuesday morning, which will include House member Taylor Greene, a supporter of Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Familiar Judge
The 45th president of the United States flew from Florida to New York on Monday and arrived at Trump Tower to prepare for his court appearance. Also on Monday, Tacopina said Trump has added former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche to his defense team.
Mr. Trump complied with the summons and appeared in court at 2:30 p.m. New York time before New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. Judge Merchan was hearing the state of New York’s lawsuit against Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud in August 2022. Mr. Weisselberg later testified in a December 2022 tax fraud case against two Trump Organization divisions, also heard by Mr. Merchan.
Those lawsuits were all filed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and overlap with the current charges. Weisselberg’s ability to continue testifying against Trump would be a boon for Bragg.
Judge Merchan has ordered the parties to appear before the court on December 4 to make pre-trial motions.
Former US President Donald Trump sits at the defense table at the Manhattan Courthouse in New York City.
History of hush money
Mr. Bragg took over the case from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr. In 2022, when two senior prosecutors urged him to support an indictment of Mr. Trump, Mr. Bragg halted the investigation, saying it was not ready. The decision led to two prosecutors leaving his office, one of whom became a critic of the decision.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Bragg explained his decision to pursue the prosecution, saying that in part it was because his office had uncovered additional evidence over the past year, although he did not provide details about that evidence.
The hush money was previously investigated by federal prosecutors who granted Mr. Weisselberg limited immunity. Mr. Weisselberg testified before a federal grand jury in an investigation into the payments in 2018. That investigation led to a guilty plea and a three-year prison sentence for Mr. Cohen, who testified twice before Mr. Bragg’s grand jury and is expected to be a key witness in this prosecution.
Federal prosecutors oppose convicting Mr. Trump over those payments, in part because of decades-old Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be impeached.
In the final days of the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump had multiple calls with Mr. Cohen, who said Mr. Trump asked for payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels and that Mr. Trump then paid him. Records later uncovered in a federal lawsuit list a series of calls and text messages in October of that year involving Mr. Cohen, campaign press secretary Hope Hicks and aide Kellyanne Conway repeatedly trying to stop Ms. Daniels from making a public statement.
Ms. Hicks and Ms. Conway are among a group of potential witnesses that includes Trump Organization Controller Jeffrey McConney, who has been a constant presence at Mr. Bragg’s office since the grand jury convened in January.
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal has also been implicated in Bragg’s investigation. Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Cohen, told CNN on Sunday that his client and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker both gave evidence to a grand jury about hush money payments to McDougal before the 2016 election. Pecker testified twice before the grand jury and was spotted leaving the courthouse last week.
Nguyen Quang Minh
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