What to Know
A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Donald Trump, marking the first criminal charges ever brought against a sitting or former U.S. president; the indictment remains sealed at this pointSome experts have said they believe Trump could be charged with falsifying business records, which can be a misdemeanor or a felony under New York law; prosecutors haven’t said whether they would seek jail time, but an indictment or even conviction wouldn’t preclude Trump from a 2024 runThe former president has vociferously denied the allegations against him in the hush money case and in several other ongoing, separate investigations; his attorney says the Republican intends to ‘vigorously fight this political prosecution in court’
The unprecedented Manhattan grand jury indictment against former President Donald Trump contains about 30 counts of document fraud-related charges, two sources familiar with the matter said Friday, though a source with direct knowledge of the court proceedings says prosecutors aren’t expected to seek its unsealing until next week.
It’s at the discretion of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office as far as when they seek to unseal the charges. Should prosecutors seek that before Tuesday, when sources say Trump is expected to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court in person for arraignment, they would have to file an unsealing application. A judge would then have to consider it.
At this point, it appears Bragg will follow normal procedure and wait for the indictment to be unsealed on Tuesday, the sources said. The situation is fluid, sources say, and subject to change.
Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Trump, confirmed to NBC News that Bragg’s office had initially wanted Trump to turn himself in Friday, but Tacopoina said he and other Trump aides rebuffed the ask. Tacopoina said Secret Service needed more time to prepare, a claim Secret Service denies, according to NBC News sources.
Those sources said the Secret Service detail was prepared to transport Trump to New York at a moment’s notice, saying its members are simply responding to orders based on agreed-upon dates between the Trump defense team and Bragg’s office. Bragg’s office confirmed late Thursday that his team had reached out to Trump’s to coordinate his surrender. No arraignment date has been set officially. Thus, the grand jury indictment remains sealed for now.
Some experts have said they believe Trump could be charged with falsifying business records, which can be a misdemeanor or a felony under New York law. To secure a conviction on the felony charge, prosecutors would have to prove that records were falsified with the intention of committing or concealing a second crime.
It’s not clear what prosecutors may allege as the second crime.
If Trump indeed turns himself in, expect a carefully choreographed and relatively quick process and release without bail (as is common in New York) — and with a focus on security. There is no playbook for booking an ex-president with U.S. Secret Service protection. Agents are tasked with the protection of former presidents unless and until they say they don’t need it. Trump has kept his detail, so agents would need to be by his side at all times.
It’s unlikely Trump would be paraded across a sidewalk in handcuffs or through a crowded court hallway, given security concerns, experts say. For most defendants, that would be typical, as would fingerprinting and a mugshot.
Bragg himself didn’t comment as he left his office Thursday night.
Trump attorneys told NBC News that the former president is expected to be arraigned Tuesday, while two sources familiar with the matter said that the tentative plan is for Trump to appear before Judge Juan Merchan after 2:15 p.m. The NYPD has ordered all its officers to be in uniform and prepare to deploy accordingly as of Friday.
Trump Denial
Trump’s team has denied wrongdoing throughout the investigation and vociferously did so again Thursday. Tacopina said the former president didn’t commit any crime and vowed to “vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”
Tacopina has accused prosecutors of “distorting laws” to try to take down the former president. He has described Trump as a victim of extortion who had to pay the money because the allegations were going to be embarrassing to him “regardless of the campaign.”
In a lengthy statement of his own in which he again denied the allegations, Trump echoed the claims his attorneys made earlier Thursday, calling the case “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
“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’s statement reads. “The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent, who just so happens to be a President of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for President, has never happened before. Ever.”
As he has continuously done in the past, Trump once again called the investigation a “Witch-hunt.” He went on to go after Bragg, who he called “a disgrace…doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on.”
Legally, an indictment does not block Trump from running in 2024, as he has repeatedly vowed to do. Prosecutors have not said whether they intended to seek prison time in the event of a conviction, a development that also wouldn’t prevent Trump from seeking or winning the presidency.
A Brief Review of the Hush Money Case
The grand jury spent weeks meeting in secret to probe Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to the porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she said she had with him years earlier. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels, through a shell company before being reimbursed by Trump, whose company, the Trump Organization, logged the reimbursements as legal expenses.
Earlier in 2016, Cohen also arranged for former Playboy model Karen McDougal to be paid $150,000 by the publisher of the supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer, which then squelched her story.
Trump denies having sex with either woman.
Trump’s company “grossed up” Cohen’s reimbursement for the Daniels payment to defray tax payments, according to federal prosecutors who filed criminal charges against the lawyer in connection with the payments in 2018. In all, Cohen got $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus, for a total of $420,000.
Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law in connection with the payments. Federal prosecutors say the payments amounted to illegal, unreported assistance to Trump’s campaign. But they declined to file charges against Trump himself.
