New York grand jury indicts former President Donald Trump in hush money payment case

A New York grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, his lawyer 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 the first former president to be charged with a crime, a development that will reverberate around the country. The indictment comes as he is the leading contender seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed the indictment Thursday evening.

“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” said a spokesperson for Bragg’s office.

The number of charges Trump faces in the indictment was not disclosed Thursday. And it was not known whether the indictment was limited to conduct related to the payment to Daniels or if it also includes conduct surrounding a separate hush money payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal by the publisher of The National Enquirer.

Trump blasted the decision, calling it “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.” Just Wednesday, he had said in a social media post that he had “gained such respect for this grand jury.”

The charge stems from the district attorney’s investigation into how the Trump Organization recorded a reimbursement to Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen after Cohen paid Daniels, who’s also known as Stephanie Clifford, to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.

Follow our live coverage of the New York grand jury vote to indict former President Donald Trump.

Trump was filming his TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” at the time of that purported tryst, and was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, who had given birth to their son, Barron, a few months earlier.

The Trump Organization in business records described the reimbursement to Cohen as a legal expense.

Falsifying business records is normally a misdemeanor under New York law, but can be elevated to a felony if the misstatement was done to cover up another crime.

Trump denies having sex with Daniels or committing wrongdoing of any kind.

“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” Trump said in a statement. “The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable — indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference.”

Tacopina and another Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said: “President Trump has been indicted.  He did not commit any crime.”

“We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court,” the defense lawyers said.

The indictment, which will be prosecuted by Bragg’s office, is the first in what could end up being several criminal cases against Trump, the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in two separate criminal cases. One is related to his efforts to overturn the Electoral College victory of President Joe Biden in the 2020 election as he made false claims of widespread ballot fraud in the popular vote that year. The other probe is 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 a number of his allies over their attempt to get Georgia officials to reverse his loss to Biden in the state in 2020.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/donald-trump-indicted-in-hush-money-payment-case.html