Former United States President Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury after a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, becoming the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges even as he makes another run for the White House.
Trump said he was “completely innocent” and indicated he would not drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
The case against Trump, brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, is centred on a $130,000 payment to an adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump.
Trump has denied the affair becoming the first former president to ever be criminally charged.
Trump’s lawyers continued to maintain the former president’s innocence on Thursday.
They say the former President Trump has been indicted. He did not commit any crime,” the attorneys Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles said in a statement.
Trump released a statement shortly after the news of the indictment broke, calling it a “witch-hunt,” and saying the move was an attempt by Democrats to interfere in the 2024 election.
“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” Trump wrote in his 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.”
Trump also went after District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying he was “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work.”
The district attorney’s office requested that Trump surrender on Friday, but Trump’s lawyers replied that the timeline was too tight, saying the U.S. Secret Service needed more time to prepare, according to a law enforcement official.
Tacopina confirmed the exchange, adding that no date had been set for the former president’s surrender.
“This evening, we contacted Trump’s attorney, coordinating his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said. “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”
Trump has already tried to use the charges to rally his base, calling on his followers to protest and “take back our nation.” But there’s no precedent for a presidential candidate campaigning during his own criminal trial. And while the case could stretch beyond November 2024, a conviction before then would spark a host of constitutional issues.
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Despite concern that Trump’s indictment could spark protests from his supporters, a spokesperson for New York, Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday that there were no credible threats of violence.
An NYPD spokesperson confirmed that all officers had been ordered to appear in uniform at 7 a.m. Friday.
Dozens of court and police officers swarmed lower Manhattan after the indictment was announced. A chopper hovered overhead. Outside the courthouse, a handful of pro-indictment protesters praised the grand jury’s decision.
Trump’s indictment follows the unrelated December conviction of his family business, the Trump Organization, for tax fraud in a case also prosecuted by Bragg.
The indictment of Trump stems from the 2018 federal conviction of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations for facilitating the payment to Daniels.
That payment came during the heart of the 2016 presidential campaign. Both Cohen and federal prosecutors have said that he acted “in coordination with and at the direction of” the former president.
Editor: Ebuwa Omo-Osagie
