Isaac Wright, spent 8 years in prison became a paralegal helping other inmates & practicing his own case. He got a police officer to admit the states attorney was bribing & lying. The state attorney commited suicide before the trial. He then had to fight against the other charges he had, and was released Wright is the only person in the US history to have been Sentenced to life in prison, Securing his own release and exoneration, and then being granted a license to practice Law by the very court that condemned him
Should District Attorney Fani Willis be removed from the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump because of her personal relationship with a special prosecutor? Lawyers were set to battle over the question during a hearing in Atlanta on Thursday.Willis, the DA for Georgia’s Fulton County, hired outside lawyer Nathan Wade to help investigate whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Wade has led the team prosecuting the case since an indictment was returned in August.Willis’ removal would be a stunning development in the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against Trump. An additional delay would likely lessen the chance that a trial would be held before the November election, when he is expected to be the Republican nominee for president. At a separate hearing in New York on Thursday, a judge is expected to confirm whether Trump’s hush-money criminal case will go to trial next month, as scheduled. The Georgia hearing, which will be broadcast live, has the potential to dig into uncomfortable details of Willis and Wade’s relationship. Throughout the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has made a serious effort to minimize drama in his courtroom and to keep lawyers focused on legal arguments.He suggested during a hearing Monday that he would continue that trend, saying that if there’s anything that amounts to “harassment or undue embarrassment,” he is “not going to feel inhibited from stepping in, even without an objection from counsel, to move this along and keep it focused on the issues at hand.”Since the allegations of an inappropriate relationship surfaced last month in a motion filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, the former president has used them to try to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Willis’ case. Other Republicans have cited them in calling for investigations into Willis, a Democrat who’s up for reelection this year.Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide, alleged that Willis and Wade had been involved in an improper romantic relationship that began before Wade was hired. The motion says Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited personally when he paid for vacations for the two of them, creating a conflict of interest. Roman, who has since been joined by Trump and several other co-defendants, is asking McAfee to toss out the indictment and to prevent Willis, Wade and their offices from continuing to be involved in the case.Earlier this month, Willis and Wade filed a response acknowledging a “personal relationship” but said it has not resulted in any direct or indirect financial benefit to the district attorney. In a sworn statement attached to the filing, Wade said the relationship began in 2022, after he was hired as special prosecutor, and that he and Willis shared travel expenses and never lived together.Willis argued she has no financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies removing her or her office from the case. Her filing called the allegations “salacious” and said they were designed to generate headlines.McAfee said during a hearing Monday that Willis could be disqualified “if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one.” He said the issues he wants to explore at the hearing are “whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or nonromantic in nature, when it formed and whether it continues.” Those questions are only relevant, he said, “in combination with the question of the existence and extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of the relationship.”Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has subpoenaed Willis, Wade, seven other employees of the district attorney’s office and others, including Wade’s former business partner, Terrence Bradley. Merchant has said Bradley will testify that Willis and Wade’s relationship began prior to his hiring as special prosecutor.McAfee on Monday declined Willis’ request to quash those subpoenas, but agreed to revisit that after Bradley testifies.
ATLANTA —
Should District Attorney Fani Willis be removed from the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump because of her personal relationship with a special prosecutor? Lawyers were set to battle over the question during a hearing in Atlanta on Thursday.
Willis, the DA for Georgia’s Fulton County, hired outside lawyer Nathan Wade to help investigate whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Wade has led the team prosecuting the case since an indictment was returned in August.
Willis’ removal would be a stunning development in the most sprawling of the four criminal cases against Trump. An additional delay would likely lessen the chance that a trial would be held before the November election, when he is expected to be the Republican nominee for president. At a separate hearing in New York on Thursday, a judge is expected to confirm whether Trump’s hush-money criminal case will go to trial next month, as scheduled.
The Georgia hearing, which will be broadcast live, has the potential to dig into uncomfortable details of Willis and Wade’s relationship. Throughout the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has made a serious effort to minimize drama in his courtroom and to keep lawyers focused on legal arguments.
He suggested during a hearing Monday that he would continue that trend, saying that if there’s anything that amounts to “harassment or undue embarrassment,” he is “not going to feel inhibited from stepping in, even without an objection from counsel, to move this along and keep it focused on the issues at hand.”
Since the allegations of an inappropriate relationship surfaced last month in a motion filed by Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, the former president has used them to try to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Willis’ case. Other Republicans have cited them in calling for investigations into Willis, a Democrat who’s up for reelection this year.
Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and onetime White House aide, alleged that Willis and Wade had been involved in an improper romantic relationship that began before Wade was hired. The motion says Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then benefited personally when he paid for vacations for the two of them, creating a conflict of interest.
Roman, who has since been joined by Trump and several other co-defendants, is asking McAfee to toss out the indictment and to prevent Willis, Wade and their offices from continuing to be involved in the case.
Earlier this month, Willis and Wade filed a response acknowledging a “personal relationship” but said it has not resulted in any direct or indirect financial benefit to the district attorney. In a sworn statement attached to the filing, Wade said the relationship began in 2022, after he was hired as special prosecutor, and that he and Willis shared travel expenses and never lived together.
Willis argued she has no financial or personal conflict of interest that justifies removing her or her office from the case. Her filing called the allegations “salacious” and said they were designed to generate headlines.
McAfee said during a hearing Monday that Willis could be disqualified “if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one.”
He said the issues he wants to explore at the hearing are “whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or nonromantic in nature, when it formed and whether it continues.” Those questions are only relevant, he said, “in combination with the question of the existence and extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of the relationship.”
Roman’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, has subpoenaed Willis, Wade, seven other employees of the district attorney’s office and others, including Wade’s former business partner, Terrence Bradley. Merchant has said Bradley will testify that Willis and Wade’s relationship began prior to his hiring as special prosecutor.
McAfee on Monday declined Willis’ request to quash those subpoenas, but agreed to revisit that after Bradley testifies.
Upon watching the first thirty-five seconds of the trailer for Argylle, it doesn’t take fans of 2022’s The Lost City very long to immediately spot a certain glaring correlation between the latter and the former. Right down to Argylle’s, spy novel author, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard, not to be confused with Jessica Chastain, who once starred in a Matthew Vaughn-written movie called The Debt), being extremely introverted and “married to her work.” While The Lost City’s Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) might not have a cat she’s devoted to the way Elly is (another extremely gimmicky element of the movie), she embodies, for all intents and purposes, the same “lonely cat lady” trope. Where Loretta has a pushy manager, Beth Hatten (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), hounding her to finish the book so she can start her tour of it, Elly has her pushy mother, Ruth Conway (Catherine O’Hara), to make her write a different ending to the final installment in the Argylle series.
After reading the finale to the book, Ruth insists that Elly owes her readers more than that. Just like Dash McMahon a.k.a. Alan (Channing Tatum), the cover model for Loretta’s books, insists that she owes it to her readers to keep the Lovemore series—steeped in the erotic romance-adventure genre—going, even though she announces her plans to end it. Like Elly, she’s run out of things to say…and she also just thinks the books are generally schlocky, and not representative in the least of her true intelligence. The same ultimately goes for Elly, after Argylle’s screenwriter, Jason Fuchs, throws in an amnesia plotline that will eventually reveal Elly is an untapped reserve of far more intelligence than she lets on. An “alter ego” that will inevitably lead to her wearing an atrocious sequined gold dress that she doesn’t quite rock with the same panache as Loretta with her fuchsia sequined jumpsuit (on loan, of course).
Loretta’s own intelligence, too, has been suppressed in favor of using her archaeology degree to make the main character in her series seem more “believable.” Even though there is nothing believable about an archaeologist named Dr. Lovemore. An archaeologist named Dr. Sage, on the other hand, slightly more so. Alas, Loretta no longer pursues her archaeological ambitions “legitimately.” And that’s been making her feel like enough of a sham lately to call it quits on the erotic novel front. Stuck on the last chapter, just as Elly is with her own final installment in the Argylle series, Loretta decides to slap together an ending, much to Alan’s dismay. Not just because it puts him out of a job, but because he has a long-time crush on Loretta and losing proximity/access to her, however rare, is a bitter pill to swallow. Loretta, of course, couldn’t be more oblivious to his affections…in the same mousy, bookish manner that Elly is oblivious to the fondness Aidan Wilde (Sam Rockwell) has for her when he initially approaches her on a train under the guise of being a “regular Joe.”
Turns out, he’s there to save her from the bevy of fellow spies on the train (a concept that itself reeks of the banal Brad Pitt movie, Bullet Train) out to kidnap her for, what else, her savvy spy mind. As displayed with unexpected perspicacity and foresight in the books she’s written. Foresight that is so accurate, as a matter of fact, that the top/most dangerous spy organization in the world, the Division, truly believes she’s the only one who can find what (or rather, who) they’re looking for. In the same fashion, Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), the man who kidnaps Loretta in The Lost City, does so because, as he reminds her, “Your fictional archaeologist was making real translations of a dead language. Something no one else has been able to do.” He then reminds her that she was once a young college student doing her dissertation on the lost language that will lead Abigail to the Crown of Fire, a valuable yet priceless treasure that has thus far only been the stuff of lore. Until Loretta gave Abigail hope that she could crack the code to finding it.
Aidan, too, hopes that Elly can use her unique writer’s brain to tap into some arcane spy knowledge that will lead them to the British hacker who holds the Masterkey (better known as a USB drive) with all the damning evidence against the Division and its corrupt members. And, naturally, because Vaughn expects us to believe that Elly is just that shrewd (along with a lot of other things we’re supposed to “just believe”), she effortlessly figures out how to find him as she and Aidan embark on an increasingly dangerous, unexpected and all-over-the-map (literally and figuratively) journey. Which, yes, is precisely what happens in The Lost City. Except the hijinks that ensue once Loretta is kidnapped (also forced to take a plane she doesn’t want to get on, as is the case with Elly) are at least far more humorous and endearing to watch unfold (not to mention much less filled with so much expository dialogue).
Maybe this is because one knows that The Lost City isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. Doesn’t seek to extend beyond the confines of its rom-com adventure genre. One that mimics the spirit of 80s classics like Romancing the Stone and the various Indiana Jones movies of that decade. This being what The Lost City does as well, and yet with just a dash more credibility and a tone that is far less “look how clever we, the writer and director, are.” Goddamn, they’re acting like they’re capable of the kind of artful meta plotline that was present in Scream. Unfortunately, that’s not the scenario.
In any event, even The Lost City couldn’t fully melt the hearts of critics like Manohla Dargis, who wrote at the time of the film’s release: “The Lost City remains a copy of a copy.” One supposes that makes Argylle a copy of a copy of a copy. And not a very well-executed one at that. Not half as well-made as The Lost City anyway, a film that has apparently stoked a rash of imitators in the genre, including the J. Lo atrocity that was Shotgun Wedding.
Perhaps the sudden increased interest in spy and/or action-adventure rom-coms is a sign of the times, what with a reboot of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in TV series format also occurring this year. Whatever that sign is, it doesn’t exactly bode well for the “new Cold War”…or the hooey content of movies like Argylle.
David Hemingson is one of those screenwriters whose handprint has been left on many TV series (starting with the immortal and life-changing The Adventures of Pete and Pete). The type of writer one is latently aware of without actually being aware of it. And yet, it wasn’t until now that Hemingson’s first screenplay for a feature came to fruition with some directorial help from Alexander Payne. The latter having struck out (critically at least) for the first time in his career with 2017’s Downsizing. Perhaps that’s why, after a six-year break from releasing new work, Payne opted to make someone else’s script come to life. In fact, it was Payne who approached Hemignson about directing the movie, which started out as a pilot for a series set at a New England boarding school. The boarding school idea long kicking around in Hemingson’s head after he himself attended one in Hartford, Connecticut.
The experience clearly stuck with him as the years passed, and he seemed to let the idea keep percolating until the right opportunity materialized via Payne’s interest in the project. Particularly since he wanted his next movie to be contained within a prep school type of setting. Despite being the only film from his oeuvre besides Nebraska that Payne didn’t also write, The Holdovers still bears that distinct Payne stamp of wryness. And, obviously, Paul Giamatti’s (who famously worked with Payne in 2004’s Sideways) performance as Paul Hunham is a large contributing factor to the acerbic wit that permeates any Payne movie. After all, with a last name like his, he’s not going to do his best to make the audience feel “comfortable.” As a matter of fact, the tagline for The Holdovers is “Discomfort and Joy.” But, in the end, doesn’t all discomfort lead to the “growth” required to achieve joy (however ephemeral)? That’s what Hunham’s only diligent student, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), seems to learn by the end of a winter break spent in pretty much total solitude with the most hated professor at Barton, the New England boarding school that serves as a foil for the one Hemingson attended in his own youth. But rather than setting the film in Connecticut, Hemingson and Payne chose Massachusetts, during the year 1970. Naturally, anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of American history will note that 1970 was fresh with collective societal trauma as a result of the U.S. government instating the draft at the end of 1969. This “lottery” all but signing any drafted man’s death warrant.
In The Holdovers, this trauma extends very personally to Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, cleansing herself from the part she played in The Idol), the head cook at Barton who just lost her only son, Curtis, to another senseless war. Thanks to her employment at the school, Mary (whose last name not only reminds us that “Mary had a little lamb,” but also that Curtis was her little lamb who got sacrificed on the pyre of the U.S. government’s hubris) was able to secure Curtis’ attendance as a student there. Even though Barton is illustriously reserved as a space for privileged white men. A demographic that Paul clearly can’t stand as much as Mary. Why else would he “dare” to fail the “legacy” student (and son of a major donor) in his much-dreaded classics course? This being a politically incorrect faux pas that leads the headmaster, Hardy Woodrip (Andrew Garman), to assign Paul with the unwanted task of “babysitting” the few “holdovers,” or students who don’t leave campus during the holidays, for the two-week winter break. Which means Woodrip is only too ready to believe the original teacher saddled with the burden when he tells him he can’t do it because his mother has lupus. Assuming that just because Paul has no plans to leave the campus infers that he has nothing “better to do” anyway, Woodrip doesn’t feel too guilty about this unique form of punishment that fell into his lap like a gift from the gods.
Also being punished are the five holdovers stuck in Paul’s “care”: the aforementioned Angus Tully, Teddy Kountze (Brady Hepner), Alex Ollerman (Ian Dolley), Ye-Joon Park (Jim Kaplan) and Jason Smith (Michael Provost). It is the latter’s father who ends up offering the quintet a lifeline by sending a helicopter to pick up Jason (after feeling remorse for exiling him just because he refused to cut his long hair), and then saying, sure, he can bring his “friends” along, too. Unfortunately for Angus (venomously called “Anus” by Teddy), Paul is unable to reach his parents on the phone in order to get permission for him to accompany the others. Thus, leaving him marooned all alone with the curmudgeonly pedagogue. Indeed, the only person he’s ever met that was so curmudgeonly was his own damn self. Thus, the “unlikely pairing” is actually a perfect match, though both men are reluctant to recognize it at first.
Mary, of course, is on her own planet of grief, not much concerned for what these white boys are getting up to so long as they don’t annoy her. That, however, proves to be a tall order most of the time. As Angus and Paul gradually start to “warm” to one another (as much as two cold-hearted bastards can), the holiday suddenly doesn’t feel like as much of a spotlight on what societal rejects they are. Mary, although a Black woman, therefore condemned to be an automatic societal reject in 1970, actually does have family she can go home to in Roxbury. Specifically, her sister (who happens to be pregnant) and brother-in-law. When the viewer realizes this, it becomes apparent that, in contrast to Paul and Angus, her life (in spite of losing her only son) comes across as far less depressing because it is much more rooted in having a sense of community outside of the oppressive school walls. This seems to be a pointed choice on Hemingson’s part, as he seeks to highlight that all the privilege in the world can’t make up for being emotionally bereft. Leading viewers to the notion that one wound will always find another in the hope that, together, they can heal. Or something to that effect that doesn’t sound so cheesy (ergo, would probably make Mr. Hunham want to vomit).
In this regard, The Holdovers emphasizes a message still little at play in mainstream movies (especially mainstream holiday ones). Which is that whatever love you’re trying to find isn’t going to be gleaned from the nuclear family model. Ultimately, you have to create a “family” from the fellow emotionally stunted ilk you encounter out there in the world. Even if you manage to come together solely due to unforeseen circumstances and only for a short period in your life.
Nearly four decades after they were busted for the New Year’s Day murder of a French tourist in Times Square, two childhood friends who have long professed their innocence appear to be on the brink of finally clearing their names.
In an Oct. 6 letter a top prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office asked a judge for a “pre-motion conference to discuss an anticipated motion to vacate the convictions” of Eric Smokes and David Warren.
The letter from Terri Rosenblatt, head of the Post-Conviction Justice Unit (PCJU) said the DA’s office is “prepared to concede … that there is newly discovered evidence that creates a reasonable probability of a more favorable outcome …”
Eric Smokes (l.) and David Warren (r.) are pictured at the defense table in State Supreme Court on Jan. 14, 2020 in New York. (Alec Tabak for New York Daily News)
The Daily News first wrote about Smokes and Warren, childhood buddies from East New York, in 2017, when their lawyers were planning to file a motion to vacate their convictions.
They were busted Jan. 8, 1987, a week after 71-year-old French tourist Jean Casse was mugged and robbed outside Ben Benson’s steakhouse on W. 52nd St. a few minutes after midnight on the morning of Jan. 1.
Smokes, then 19, and Warren, then 16, said from the start that they went with friends to Times Square to celebrate the new year and that when Casse was attacked they were outside the Latin Quarter nightclub, four blocks away from the steakhouse. They then headed further south because they didn’t have enough money to get in.
Casse, visiting the city with his wife and others — was heading back to his room at the Plaza Hotel with his group when he was knocked to the ground with a punch and struck his head on the ground, causing injuries he would die from later that day. His wife, Huguette Casse, 65, was not hurt.
Based largely on eyewitness testimony, both teens were charged with murder and convicted. Smokes, accused of punching Casse, was sentenced to 25 years to life, and Warren, accused of rifling through the victim’s pockets, got 15 years to life.
“I just went into shock,” Warren recalled when The News first interviewed him. “I might have been in shock for two years, honestly.”
Eric Smokes, right, and David Warren listen to arguments in court Thursday, January 3, 2019 in Manhattan. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
In 2005, Smokes got a letter in prison from James Walker, the prosecution’s key witness.
Walker, 16 at the time, was busted for a mugging a day after Casse was killed and told a detective he had done robberies with Smokes and Warren, and that Smokes earlier on Jan. 2 said he’d “caught a body” in Times Square.
The letter, an apology in which he said he told the police what they wanted in exchange for preferential treatment in his own case, was all Smokes needed to hear.
“There was only one way to go,” Smokes told The News in 2017. “Getting out and just letting it go, sucking it up — ’25 years is just 25 years’ — that wasn’t an option for me.”
Eric Smokes testifies in court Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019 in Manhattan. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
Warren was released from prison in 2009, Smokes in 2011. They found steady work in construction, married the women they were dating and set out to clear their names.
Their lawyers found two other witnesses who recanted, saying they had been pressured by police and prosecutors to pin the murder on Smokes and Warren.
“They kept asking me who did it,” Robert Anthony testified in 2018. “I kept telling them I didn’t know. I didn’t do anything. And they said, yeah, well…If they didn’t do it, you did it.”
After repeatedly saying he saw Casse on the ground but not who attacked him, Anthony testified that after 12 hours of being grilled he finally told cops what they wanted to hear.
“I was scared,” he explained.
The other witness, Kevin Burns testified that as he was being questioned for an unrelated robbery on Jan. 2, 1987 he said he was outside the steakhouse the night before and saw Casse confronted by Smokes and Warren.
When he then tried to take back that statement, explaining he had lied, he said an assistant district attorney told him it was too late, vowed to out him as a snitch if he didn’t stick with his original story and promised he’d get no deal in his own pending case.
“I lived with this lie,” he said at the 2018 hearing. “Everybody has something in their life they’re ashamed of and wish they had a chance to rectify. This is my chance to rectify this lie that I told 30 years ago.”
David Warren in State Supreme Court on Jan. 14, 2020 in New York. (Alec Tabak for New York Daily News)
Antignani said Smokes and Warren had not “established their innocence through clear and convincing evidence” and he agreed with Assistant District Attorney Christine Keenan, who had argued that neither police nor prosecutors involved in the original investigation pressured witnesses.
Witnesses Anthony and Burns were “not credible,” the judge said in his ruling, and he gave only “limited credence” to Walker’s claims, which he repeated in an affidavit, but was not able to testify to because he died after getting shot in an unrelated incident.
But as the lawyers for Smokes and Warren, James Henning and Pierre Sussman, prepared to appeal, the DA’s office changed course. The PCJU, formed by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, decided to review the case, sharing information and witness access with defense lawyers.
PCJU’s Rosenblatt in her letter said “new evidence” had emerged — including photographs “which were misplaced and not found until after” the motion to vacate hearing. Smokes is listed as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 230 pounds — not 6 feet tall and skinny, as witnesses told police at the time.
There were also leads to other suspects that were not turned over, with Rosenblatt pointing out that there is “no evidence” the DA’s office was aware of this during the vacate hearing.
Rosenblatt also notes an account from someone who in statements revealed for the first time he said he was “99% confident” he was with Burns the entire night and that neither of them were outside the steakhouse; a contention from a witness who in 1987 placed Smokes and Warren at the crime but now said he made that claim because cops had threatened to charge him if he didn’t; and so-called “scratch notes” that were located in another file that suggest police fed Anthony facts, including Warren’s name and photo, before he identified him as being involved.
“The People do not take the decision to consent to vacate two homicide convictions lightly, and come to this Court with significant deference to both the jury verdict and the prior litigation,” Rosenblatt said in her letter. “The People are aware of the resources that went into both, and the thoroughness of the Court’s prior decision.
“However, based on the newly-discovered evidence, the People believe that the only legally correct and just outcome is to move to vacate these convictions.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if Henning and Sussman would contest whether the evidence found during the review constitutes a Brady violation, which is a failure to turn over to the defense exculpatory evidence and could constitute malfeasance.
The lawyers said they, Smokes, now 56, and Warren, 53, wouldn’t comment until a decision is made in the case.
The DA’s office had no comment on the letter.
A decision in the case is not expected for at least several weeks.
Question: Can an indicted person run for president?
Answer: Yes. There’s nothing in the Constitution preventing it. Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution doesn’t mention criminal records. The only requirements to run are being a natural-born citizen at least 35 years old and resident in the U.S. for 14 years.
“ Not only can an indicted person run for president, but a convicted one can, too, legal experts say. ”
Not only can an indicted person run for president, but a convicted one can, too, legal experts say. “There’s nothing in the Constitution disqualifying individuals convicted of crimes from running for or serving as president,” ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw told the network.
Q.: What has Trump said about a possible indictment’s effect on his campaign?
A.:“I wouldn’t even think about leaving,” he told reporters ahead of his speech at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. “Probably it will enhance my numbers.” Trump has said he did nothing wrong.
Trump in mid-March said he could be arrested in the coming days, encouraged his supporters to protest and wrote on social media, “TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
Q.: What have Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination, or other Republican politicians, said about an indictment?
A.: In a tweet Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to announce his bid for the GOP presidential nomination, called the indictment “un-American” and accused the Manhattan D.A. of having a political agenda. DeSantis added that Florida would not cooperate in an extradition request.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said “the House of Representatives will hold [Manhattan D.A.] Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account,” while Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who has called for a probe into the Manhattan D.A.’s investigation, tweeted a single word Thursday: “Outrageous.”
Q.: What would a Trump arrest actually look like?
A.: It’s standard for defendants arrested on felony charges to be handcuffed — but it’s unclear whether an exception would be made for Trump due to his status, the New York Times reported. The former president would likely be released on his own recognizance, the Times said, because an indictment likely would contain only nonviolent felony charges. But he would be fingerprinted and photographed.
Q.: Is Bragg’s the only investigation Trump is facing?
A.: No. Besides the Manhattan district attorney’s case, Trump is facing another in Fulton County, Ga., and two federal probes led by special prosecutor Jack Smith. The Georgia probe centers on efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn that state’s 2020 election result. Smith’s investigations concern Trump’s handling of classified material after he left office, and the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
So Trump could be in for more charges depending on the results of those investigations.
Q.: Could something else prevent Trump from being president?
A.: The 14th Amendment bars anyone from public office who, “having previously taken an oath” to support the Constitution, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort” to enemies of the U.S. Late last year, a group of 40 House Democrats introduced legislation to bar Trump from holding office, and invoked the 14th Amendment, with Rep. David Cicilline saying the ex-president “very clearly” engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
