A Manhattan grand jury voted last night to formally indict Donald Trump for bribing porn actress Stormy Daniels, national media reported. It is the first time a US president has been criminally indicted.
One of Trump's lawyers confirmed the information by saying that his client had been indicted in New York on charges related to the payment of $130,000 to Daniels in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign, to ensure his silence in relation with an alleged extramarital relationship that both would have had ten years ago.
The sources that gave and ratified the historic news did not specify the charges against the former Republican president. But it is taken for granted that, after the grand jury vote, the prosecutor in the case, Democrat Alvin Bragg, would immediately set in motion the machinery that corresponds to a criminal indictment.
Thus, Trump should now be subpoenaed to appear before justice; for them to take their fingerprints and take their photos, front and profile, and to read them their rights. An arrest in which he would have been handcuffed was not ruled out, judicial informants pointed out, despite the lack of precedents for a leader of the nation in such circumstances.
The news, first reported by The New York Times, was not only a bomb but a complete surprise. Because, after Trump himself falsely reported that he was going to be arrested on Tuesday of last week, the grand jury apparently suspended the sessions in which its 23 members had to make a decision. Sources close to that body and the prosecutor who will have to present the charges assured Wednesday, even, that they would take a long break of several weeks, at least until the end of April. Is it playing catch-up to counter possible Trump maneuvers? We may know in the next few days.
The one who was president of the United States between the years 2016 and 2020, and since last November is a candidate for re-election in the elections of 2024, was at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, when the grand jury notified the resolution.
Pending to know the details of the procedure, which will first lead to the appearance of the ultra leader before a New York court to answer the charges attributed to him, experts last night stressed the priority concern for security .
We must remember the menacing bravado with which Trump reacted when judicial media advanced his very likely impeachment: the former president warned that any accusation against him would cause "death and destruction".
In addition, Trump threatened the prosecutor in the case with a photomontage in which he appeared wielding a baseball bat in front of Bragg's image - a message whose content even the ex-president's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, took issue with .
The Daniels case is one of several that have dogged Trump for years, including the investigations into his role in the Capitol attack; his previous and subsequent attempts to falsify election results, particularly in the state of Georgia; his decision to take home and hide hundreds of secret papers, and his fraudulent dealings in his business.
Investigations into the Daniels case began five years ago. That's when Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted in August 2018 that he had arranged clandestine payments to the actress in 2016. Cohen pleaded guilty to the corresponding federal crimes.
The fact that the payments were made in the presidential campaign was a key fact from the beginning. Because, although the central accusation against Trump would lie in document falsification to hide the bribe, such an act would only constitute a minor crime. But if the concealment was related to the misuse of funds linked in some way to the election campaign, for example to be used to slow down a decline in votes, the criminal qualification could cost him four years in prison, according to the experts, Cohen's confession led the district attorney's office in Manhattan to open a comprehensive investigation to examine whether the payments violated New York state laws.
As expected, Trump responded to the news of his impeachment last night by disqualifying the Manhattan grand jury vote. It is "political persecution and electoral interference at the highest level in history," he wrote on his network, Truth Social, in his usual apocalyptic tone.
"Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession to try to catch Trump, but now they have done the unthinkable," he wrote himself: "Accusing a completely innocent person."
Without insisting too much on his accusations against prosecutor Bragg, which he did not fail to describe as a "disgrace" for justice, the accused chose rather to raise the investigation as a huge conspiracy of his political opponents, with the president of the country at the head. And he predicted: "I think this witch hunt will be counterproductive for Joe Biden."
Needless to say, the US networks and media were immediately on fire. Almost everything turned out to be predictable, except for one unexpected move. And it is that a considerable number of former employees of the Trump Organization, as its business corporation is called, spread text messages "applauding" the judicial action, as also reported by The New York Times. It was "a reminder - indicated the rotator - of how many people have felt burned in various ways by the former president over the years".
Democratic Party leaders across the country also reacted immediately. "It's a long-awaited step to hold Trump accountable for his flagrant disregard for our laws and democracy," said Jessica Velásquez, president of the formation in New Mexico. "The legal system is finally holding him accountable for his transgressions, but it's up to the voters to hold him accountable in his candidacy for the presidency," he added.
The representative of the Democratic National Committee Ammar Moussa aimed for his part against the opposition by pointing out for his part that "regardless of what happens in the upcoming legal proceedings against Trump, it is obvious that the Republican Party remains firmly in hands of the ex-president and the MAGA Republicans (the slogan of the extremist sector headed by the leader, Make America Great Again)”. But everything must be seen now. Well, it's about the never seen
