A Manhattan Grand Jury Indictment of a Former President Donald Trump: The Witch-Hunt Will Kill Joe Biden, and the American Left Democrats
A Manhattan grand jury’s indictment of former President Donald Trump will set in motion a criminal process that will in some ways work like that of any other defendant, and in other ways, look very different.
The investigation was started by the previous governor, Cy Vance, when Trump took office. It relates to a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels in late October 2016, days before the 2016 presidential election, to silence her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump denied the affair.
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.
A statement was released by Trump in relation to the indictment, which he claimed was the greatest level of political interference in history.
The former president said that the Witch-Hunt will backfire on Joe Biden. The American people are all aware of what the Radical Left Democrats are doing. Everyone can see it. We will defeat Joe Biden first, and then we will defeat Alvin Bragg in order to make America great again, so we will throw all of the Democrats out of office.
Donald Trump: A Candidate Who Can Stay Away Unless Indicted by the Grand Jury? The Indictment and the Republican Campaign
Americans must set aside politics when making judgments on legal cases. While Mr. Trump routinely called for his enemies to be investigated by the F.B.I., to be indicted or to face the death penalty, his indifference to due process for others shouldn’t deny him the system’s benefits, including a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. He shouldn’t be given any special privileges as a former president. He should have to follow the same procedures as any other citizen.
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 can continue as a presidential candidate while a criminal defendant, and even if the case results in conviction before the election, because the federal constitution sets the qualifications for the presidency – and it does not include anything about a criminal record or pending charges. At the Conservative Political Action Committee in March, Trump confirmed as much, saying he would stay in the race even if he were indicted by federal or state authorities while running again.
Trump has avoided many legal consequences in his life. He has settled a number of private civil lawsuits through the years and paid his way out of disputes concerning the Trump Organization, his namesake company. He wasn’t convicted by the Senate as president, even though the House impeached him twice.
The upcoming indictment of the Manhattan district attorney is being condemned by Trump supporters and his rivals, as well as by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“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.
Ted Cruz said that the indictment is a catastrophic escalation in the weaponization of the justice system.
“We have a judge. There are jurors. There are appeals. I believe in the end justice will be done. It’s going to show up if he’s guilty. If not, I think that will be shown.
Comment on Seminar on the Case of the Indictment of Donald Trump of 2024” by J. J. Rodgers
Trump Organization executives authorized four payments to Cohen of $420,000 to cover his taxes and to give him a bonus, according to the court documents. The legal expenses have been noted in the internal books of the Trump Organization. Trump has denied knowledge of the payment.
Editor’s Note: Jennifer Rodgers is a former federal prosecutor, adjunct professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law, lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and a CNN legal analyst. The opinions expressed here are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.
When you put these factors all together, it’s a recipe for significantly protracted, and legally challenging, proceedings. It is possible that the charges will lead to a trial of Trump. But while accountability may be coming, it will neither be swift nor easy.
A threshold question is whether this indictment will have any impact on Trump’s declared candidacy for the presidency in 2024. The answer is not legal.
It will be politically and logistically challenging to run a campaign while facing charges. It is hard to imagine a judge granting any significant delays for this purpose, because the case schedule is controlled by the assigned judge.
And if Trump is convicted and sentenced to prison before the election (or after winning it but before he takes office), his inability to fulfill the duties of the office may prompt efforts to remove him. If Trump chooses to remain a candidate, then he can for the time being.
After Trump is formally arrested, he will be brought to court to be heard on the indictment. During that hearing, the court will address issues like bail and the setting of a preliminary hearing date, if necessary, to determine whether prosecutors have amassed enough evidence to move forward to trial.
I think that Trump will allow a voluntary surrender in New York, instead of forcing officials to coordinate an arrest with local law enforcement in Florida for him to be released pending trial. The former president’s counsel and prosecutors likely will end their agreements here.
An early decision point for Trump and his lawyers is whether they will seek a preliminary hearing at which prosecutors would be required to present evidence establishing probable cause—namely, a reasonable basis to believe that a crime has been committed.
Our legal system is governed by precedent and has opportunities for defendants to argue about issues that Trump will likely advance. In particular, Trump’s likely claims relying on his status as the former president mean that the New York judges involved will be considering matters that are as yet unresolved by courts. The time it takes for courts to rule on these claims will be stretched by all of this.
Questions of fact for the jury can be asked about whether or not the then-presidential candidate paid Daniels not to damage his campaign, but to avoid personal embarrassment.
But some issues may generate the need for judicial scrutiny, like Trump’s expected allegations of prosecutorial misconduct and selective prosecution, Trump’s possible reliance on an advice of counsel defense and Trump’s likely legal challenges to the prosecutor’s theory of the case.
When the Justice Department conducted a search of Mar-a-Lago, there were separate legal challenges to be filed and Trump wanted a special master to look at any seized documents.
A special master was brought in to conduct an unnecessary review of documents before the appellate court reversed Cannon’s ruling.
The Donald Trump Regulatory Indictment: Why he didn’t Turn Himself In and What we Can Do about it, or How to Detect It
First appearances are usually public proceedings. In some cases, arrangements are made with defendants or their lawyers for a self-surrender – or voluntarily turning themselves in – to law enforcement.
Multiple sources told CNN that Donald Trump will likely be able to turn himself in and he is expected to face a judge Tuesday.
He tried to force both unjust substance and unjust process on the American public after the 2020 election. His legal arguments for changing the election were not valid and were promptly dismissed by every court that heard them. The mob decided to abandon their legal processes and just storm the Capitol, frustrated by the courts. They refused to respect American law until they were force to do so.
Regardless of whether the case is as weak as I fear it might be, Trump’s obligations are perfectly clear. Yes, he can certainly publicly dispute the charges. That is his right. But his ultimate path to contesting the district attorney’s claims runs through the courts, not the streets.
Trump and his defenders are trying to get his supporters to reject the rule of law, root and branch. The charges are deemed illegitimate, sight unseen. Just as with the election challenge, there is but one acceptable outcome — Trump wins. Anything else is taken as proof of the decline and fall of American democracy. And we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt after Jan. 6, that when you tell a sufficient number of Americans that the country is on the verge of destruction, then they’ll take matters into their own hands.
Former President Donald Trump will not accept a plea deal in the indictment brought by a Manhattan grand jury but does plan to file “substantial legal challenges” to the indictment, his attorney Joe Tacopina said.
“I don’t know if it’s gonna make it to trial because we have substantial legal challenges that we have to address before we get to that point,” he said when asked if he expects the case to trial.
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 would think in very short order, you’ll see a motion to dismiss — or several motions to dismiss — talking about this kind of impossible theory of stacking a federal crime into a state misdemeanor, statute of limitations issues and very importantly, the intent to defraud. That’s an element of these false record keeping charges. Trusty told CNN This Morning that that’s not present here.
Responding to CNN reporting that Trump has been charged on more than 30 counts related to business fraud, Tacopina said he does not know the nature of the charges against Trump or how many there are, but added, “If it’s correct, it means they’ve taken each transaction, each check, each payment, each entry and made a separate charge.”