Donald Trump charged with 34 felony counts in hush money scheme
NEW YORK — A stone-faced Donald Trump, making a historically momentous court appearance as the only ex-president to be charged with a crime, was confronted with a 34-count felony indictment Tuesday accusing him in a scheme to bury negative information during his first campaign.
The arraignment in a Manhattan courtroom, though largely procedural in nature, was nonetheless a stunning — and humbling — spectacle for the former president, putting him face-to-face with prosecutors who bluntly accused him of criminal conduct and setting the stage for a possible criminal trial in the city where he decades ago became a celebrity.
The indictment centers on allegations that Trump sought to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments designed to silence claims that he feared would be harmful to his candidacy. It includes 34 counts of falsified business documents for checks that Trump sent to his personal lawyer and problem-solver to reimburse him for his role in paying off a porn actor who said she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
“The defendant, Donald J. Trump, falsified New York business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and other violations of election laws," said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy.
Trump, somber and silent as he entered and exited the Manhattan courtroom, said “not guilty” in a firm voice while facing a judge who warned him to refrain from rhetoric that could inflame or cause civil unrest. All told, the ever-verbose Trump, who for weeks before Tuesday’s arraignment had assailed the case against him as political persecution, uttered only 10 words — though he did appear to glare for a period at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor who brought the case.
As he returned to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, where he planned to deliver a primetime address to supporters, Trump again protested his innocence and asserted on his Truth Social platform that the “hearing was shocking to many in that they had no ‘surprises,’ and therefore, no case.”
Even so, the indictment amounts to a remarkable reckoning for Trump after years of investigations into his personal, business and political dealings. It shows how even as Trump is looking to reclaim the White House in 2024, he is shadowed by investigations related to his behavior in the two prior elections, with prosecutors in Atlanta and Washington scrutinizing efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the 2020 presidential election. Those probes, as well as a separate Justice Department inquiry into the mishandling of classified documents, could produce even more charges.
In the New York case, each count of falsifying business records, a felony, is punishable by up to four years in prison — though it's not clear if a judge would impose any prison time if Trump is convicted. The next court date is December 4 — two months before Republicans begin their nominating process in earnest — and Trump will again be expected to appear.
A conviction would not prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.
The arraignment also delved into Trump's rhetoric on the case, with prosecutors at one point handing printouts of his social media posts to the judge and defense lawyers as Trump looked on. Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan did not impose a gag order but told Trump's lawyers to urge him to refrain from posts that could encourage unrest.
The broad contours of the case have long been known, but the indictment contains new details about a scheme that prosecutors say began months into his candidacy in 2015, as his celebrity past collided with his presidential ambitions. Though prosecutors expressed confidence in the case, a conviction is no sure thing given the legal complexities of the allegations, the application of state election laws to a federal election and prosecutors' likely reliance on a key witness, Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to false statements.
It centers on payoffs to two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged the former president had out of of wedlock.
"It’s not just about one payment. It is 34 false statements and business records that were concealing criminal conduct,” Bragg told reporters, when asked how the three separate cases were connected.
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