The US is “going to hell”, Donald Trump has said in a defiant address after pleading not guilty to falsifying business records to hide damaging information ahead of the 2016 election.
The former president was charged with 34 counts in a Manhattan court in New York on Tuesday.
These relate to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says they had an affair.
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on a slew of criminal charges, including 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, according to the unsealed court records released on Tuesday afternoon.
Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan announced the felony charges during Trump’s initial court appearance on Tuesday afternoon, marking the first time a former president has been criminally charged in U.S. history. Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts.
Donald Trump arrest: Whom did Trump ‘defraud’ in 34 felony counts of hush money payments?
Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment.
Trump, 76, was pictured with his shoulders slightly hunched as he took his seat at the defendant’s table in Manhattan Supreme Court ahead of his historic arraignment.
BREAKING: Donald Trump is now under arrest in New York City ahead of his arraignment in court https://t.co/0NxzuxZt8I pic.twitter.com/9sdFFunjcM
— CNN (@CNN) April 4, 2023
Former President Donald Trump will make his first appearance in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday afternoon on criminal charges tied to the Stormy Daniels hush-money payment — marking an unprecedent moment in US history.
Trump, 76, will face a historic booking and arraignment after he surrenders to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office downtown in the early afternoon.
Alvin Bragg’s Dangerous Stunt
Today in Manhattan the resistance will get what it’s been craving for years. Is it worth it?
For seven years, the progressive resistance has fantasized about Donald Trump’s indictment, conviction, and incarceration.
First, there was his alleged collusion with Russia, which dominated the better part of 2017 and 2018, and tapered off in early 2019.
Then, just as Russiagate was winding down, along came all the talk about his obstruction of the investigation into that alleged collusion, followed by his phone call with Ukraine’s president, during which Trump asked Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden. This became grist for his first impeachment in late 2019.
The indictment of former President Donald Trump is just the latest maneuver by many in the United States to distort elections.
The indictment will not be known until tomorrow, but according to the American media, the former president is accused of making fraudulent payments to a porn star with whom Trump denies having had sexual relations. According to the claims of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who went to prison for “lying to the Internal Revue Services about the taxes he owed, lying to financial institutions and lying to Congress,” Trump is accused of making the payments with funds from his 2016 presidential campaign, which is prohibited. But Trump did not use campaign funds, which would actually have been a serious violation of campaign laws. Trump used his personal money — to pay Cohen.
With the indictment of former President Donald Trump, the U.S. has entered the “era of police-state politics,” as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland put it Friday morning. The prosecution and expected arrest of a former president — and likely presidential challenger — is a serious thing, made all the more outrageous by the nakedly political nature of New York D.A. Alvin Bragg’s mission. Bragg appears to be ginning up a criminal probe out of a possible campaign finance issue that federal prosecutors had already declined to pursue.
In March 2021, two months after the F.B.I. arrested Dominic Pezzola, a New York Proud Boy, on charges stemming from the Capitol attack, one of the lead agents on the case made an unusual confession. On Lync, the bureau’s internal chat system, she said she felt sorry for the man she had helped take into custody.
“Is it bad i almost kind of feel bad for Pezzola?” the agent, Nicole Miller, asked one of her colleagues.
When the colleague told her that Mr. Pezzola was in jail because of choices he had made, Agent Miller seemed to agree. But then, she snapped back into work mode.
The entire effort by Alvin Bragg to resurrect what the Washington Post editorial board rightly calls a “zombie” case has looked dodgy from the beginning. Even Bragg found it dodgy — after all, he shut down an investigation into the payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal shortly after taking office. And unless Bragg has a much different case than the one his office has been pursuing for the last couple of years, the editorial board echoed Van Jones in their reaction last night.
Florida Governor and 2024 rival Ron DeSantis offered Donald Trump a partial lifeline on Thursday, saying he would try to thwart the extradition of the former president from his state.
He made his promise after news broke that a Manhattan jury had voted to indict him over $130,000 in hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump said Democrats would regret ever persecuting an innocent man when his supporters dump them out of office.
The Manhattan grand jury hearing evidence in the Stormy Daniels “hush money” investigation on Thursday voted to indict the former president, two sources with knowledge of the case told The Post.
The sealed indictment was filed with the clerk’s office Thursday evening — setting the stage for the first ever criminal prosecution of a former US president, the sources said. The specific charges were not made public.
The “QAnon Shaman” — known for storming the US Capitol shirtless in a horned coyote-fur headdress— was released from prison 14 months early and moved to a halfway house, his lawyer said Thursday.
Jacob Chansley, 35, who became the notorious poster boy of the Jan. 6 riots, had been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison but served only 11 months, said his attorney Albert Watkins.
h/t XC
The Manhattan grand jury that’s hearing evidence against former President Trump in the Stormy Daniels “hush money” case plans to recess for a month, The Post has learned.
The break, which will cover the city school system’s weeklong Spring Recess next month, was pre-planned, according to a source familiar with the matter.
It will also push back any potential indictment of Trump, 76, in connection with the $130,000 that his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006.
Democrats appear to be divided when it comes to the rumors of leftist Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg potentially indicting former President Trump, as 46 percent would consider it an “outrageous abuse of power” at the hands of a radical DA, Monday’s Rasmussen Reports survey found.
Donald Trump on Friday threatened “death and destruction” if he’s criminally charged in New York — writing the shocking social media warning after posting an image of himself holding a baseball bat next to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s head.
“They are HUMAN SCUM!” the 76-year-old former president raged in one post asking why Bragg “refuses to do the right thing and ‘call it a day?’”
