How Donald Trump is going to surrender himself to authorities after he’s been charged with a mugshot in the Manhattan district attorney’s office

Donald Trump is preparing to surrender himself to authorities after he was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.

What’s in the indictment? The Manhattan district attorney’s office began investigating in late October of 2016 when Trump was in the White House about a $130,000 payment made by Cohen to Daniels in order to keep her from talking about the alleged affair. Trump has denied the affair.

It is expected that Trump will plead not guilty. “I will be going to the Courthouse on Tuesday morning,” he wrote on Truth Social. “America was not supposed to be this way!”

Brinkley told Morning Edition that it was the first time that he had ever heard of a former president getting a mugshot. With Trump also facing a handful of other ongoing criminal cases, “we’re in for a very rocky spring,” Brinkley said.

TRUMP Traveling Next-To-The-Trial: The New York Criminal arraignment (What’s next for a former president?)

A criminal defendants first court appearance is an insturment. For a normal defendant, that’s usually when one would appear for photographs, fingerprints and arrest paperwork, a process that typically takes several hours behind closed doors.

The charges against the defendants are heard by a judge. Defendants can enter a plea, most often “not guilty,” at this stage in the criminal process.

Manhattan District Attorney Bragg believes that the justice system should treat a former president like any other criminal and that he may have to go through many of the typical steps of an bail hearing.

Even so, his status as a former president is expected to pose some unusual logistical challenges. He has a large legal team and a Secret Service detail. Protests are expected. Media attention will come from the media. Along with the daily operations of a busy state court office, will occur all of that.

“There’s a lot of external factors that just don’t happen for 99.99% of the cases we have,” said former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in an NPR interview on Sunday. It will be a challenge for police and court officers, as well as the office of investigators to make sure things run smoothly.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167756756/trump-traveling-new-york-arraignment-whats-next-trial

The far-off question in Donald Trump’s third run as a presidential candidate — a challenge for lawyers and jurors, as judged by a case study

It’s expected that a judge will determine that Trump does not pose a flight risk. After the hearing, Trump will be free to leave. He will give a speech in Florida that night, according to his campaign.

The indictment, the product of a nearly five-year investigation, kicks off a new and volatile phase in Mr. Trump’s post-presidential life as he makes a third run for the White House. It will throw the Republican nomination race into a new area.

Kim Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, says that he still has the same due process as everyone else.

When asked about the potential charges against him and penalties they would carry, she says that’s “way, way down the line,” telling All Things Considered there are plenty of hurdles to get through first.

Wehle says that there are procedural, evidentiary and constitutional protections in place to make sure that the far-off question is fair.

Key to a trial will be the strength of the evidence presented by prosecutors, legal experts said. Another factor will be the jury, said Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.

“This ultimately will be decided not in the court of public opinion, but it will be decided by those 12 people,” Gerhardt told Weekend Edition. Mr. Trump’s lawyers will be present from the beginning, and they need to make sure the jury is fair, and that it does its job.

There could be challenges to find jurors in Manhattan who aren’t already negative about Trump because he only won 12% of the vote in the presidential election.

Most similar cases would probably take a year to get to trial, Galluzzo says. He expects that Trump will try to delay that process as much as possible.

The first former American president to face criminal charges in hush money payments to a porn star: A surreal moment for a divided nation

“They’re not going to make him an offer that he would accept,” he adds. He probably wants that public stage to play the victim and have an audience.

Mr. Trump was indicted last week on charges connected to a hush money payment to a porn star — becoming the first former American president to face criminal charges.

He surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Tuesday afternoon and later appeared before a judge for his arraignment, where he entered a not guilty plea — a surreal scene for a man who once occupied the Oval Office and is mounting a third run for the White House.

In a remarkable spectacle playing out before a divided nation, Mr. Trump’s 11-vehicle motorcade arrived just before 1:30 at the district attorney’s office, part of the towering Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. While in custody, he was fingerprinted like any felony defendant, but special accommodations were made for the former president: He spent only a short time in custody.

Mr. Trump entered the courtroom with anger on his face. He was accompanied by his legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn, and the lawyers handling this case, Todd W. Blanche, Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina. Mr. Trump declined to speak before or after the hearing, and immediately left to fly back to his home in Florida.

Mr. Blanche, speaking outside the courthouse after the arraignment, said the former president was upset over the charges but determined to prevail. “He’s frustrated. He is upset. But I will tell you what you need to know. He is motivated. He said that it wasn’t going to slow him down.

The case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, charges the former president with 34 counts of filing false business records in the first degree, a low-level felony that carries a maximum of four years in prison for each count, though if he is convicted a judge could sentence him to probation.

Amid fears of protests and Trump-inspired threats, the events at the courthouse were highly choreographed by the Secret Service, the New York City Police Department, court security and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been investigating Mr. Trump for nearly five years. The streets outside the courthouse were packed with the press corps and hundreds of demonstrators, as well as the supporters and critics of the former president assembling at a nearby park, screaming at one another from metal barricades placed to keep the peace.

A former Trump Tower doorman received $30,000 from the National Enquirer in exchange for his testimony that Mr. Trump fathered a child outside of wedlock. The publication later determined the claim was untrue.

Karen McDougal, Playmates of the Year in 1998, was paid $100,000 by the tabloid to keep her from speaking about her relationship with Donald Trump. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the National Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”

Daniels was ordered to pay Trump’s attorneys just over $120,000 in legal fees. That’s on top of the more than $500,000 in court-ordered payments to Trump attorneys she’s already been ordered to pay.

Prosecutors on Tuesday alleged Trump was a part of an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election. They claim that he was involved in a plan to suppress negative information.

But it is perhaps unsurprising, given the crass and circuslike political era that Mr. Trump’s election ushered in — one marked by the elevation of D-list celebrities, uncouth social media posts and a casual relationship with the truth — that his first indictment stems from lies about a tryst with a porn star.

And Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing — as well as any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels — and has lashed out at Mr. Bragg with threatening and at times racist language, calling the district attorney, who is Black, an “animal” and summoning his followers to “PROTEST” his arrest. His rhetoric was similar to what he wrote in the run-up to the Capitol attack.

The drama centered on the question of whether Trump would be indicted and how he would respond, and eventually reached a climax with Mr. Trump’s surrender. He has been worried about an arrest for several weeks, while his aides have used the indictment to push his rivals into an awkward dance between condemning prosecutors and supporting Mr. Trump.

Mr. Bragg is the first prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, and has already entered the political spotlight, an uncomfortable position for a district attorney who has never before held elected office.

The advisers were surprised by the reports that Mr. Trump would be facing a lot of felony counts, and they were under the impression that he would be charged with only Misdemeanors.

Mr. Trump has been in trouble with the law for nearly 50 years. He was the subject of a probe in New York in the 70s which set the tone for how he dealt with prosecutors for decades.

Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing Mr. Trump for his actions after the election. A prosecutor in Georgia is in the final stages of investigating Mr. Trump’s attempt to change the outcome of the election.

Mr. Trump’s allies have been heavily focused on the idea that he could face a gag order, something his advisers are also aware is a possibility after his broadsides against Mr. Bragg, who pushed for indictment, and Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case. There is no indication so far that the judge plans to do so.

The Defamation of Stormy Daniels by a Far Right Georgia Representative: A Final Lawsuit Against Trump in the State of the Art

The far right Georgia Republican held a rally at a park across the street from the courthouse. She denounced the Democrats through a megaphone, however her words were often drowned out by protesters and counter protesters. She spoke for about five minutes and was thrown out of the park by the police.

The former president was successful with his efforts to get back some of his legal costs from Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who had filed a defamation suit against him.

Daniels sued Trump after he accused her of being a con artist and threatening her in a parking lot in order to keep quiet about their alleged affair.

The court agrees with the arguments made by Mr. Trump and agrees with the term “rhetorical hyperbole” when used in the United States. The First Amendment protects this type of rhetorical statement,” Otero wrote at the time.

The attorneys for Trump spent nearly 190 hours on the motion to dismiss, a reply to the opposition, two extension motions, and the fee application.

Trump attorney Harmeet Dhillon celebrated the ruling in a tweet Tuesday, saying: “Congratulations to President Trump on this final attorney fee victory in his favor this morning. Collectively, our firm obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in his favor in the meritless litigation initiated by Stormy Daniels.”

The reason he committed the crime of falsifying business records was in part to “promote his candidacy,” prosecutors alleged. A criminal conspiracy charge has not been brought against Trump.

According to a person who spoke directly with Trump, he was surprised by the grand jury decision to indict him. While the former president was bracing for an indictment, he began to believe news reports that a potential indictment was weeks – or more – away. The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the matter and continued his attacks on Bragg and other Democrats following news of the indictment.