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  • Trump’s Biggest Trick: Making GOP Voters Feel His Indictment Is Targeting Them

    Trump’s Biggest Trick: Making GOP Voters Feel His Indictment Is Targeting Them

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    In the normal pre-Donald Trump world, a politician getting in trouble for paying off an adult film star he allegedly cheated on his third wife with would be, you know, a political scandal like the kind that brought down everyone from Eliot Spitzer to John Edwards. But Trump has made it so his sex scandals and possible election interference aren’t functions of his own behavior, but rather deep state plots to keep MAGA down. It’s the greatest trick Trump ever played on Republicans; he’s convinced them that attempts at accountability for his actions are a direct assault on them. “This is an attack on our country the likes of which has never been seen before,” he posted after news of his coming indictment in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, adding that it’s part of the “continuing attack on our once free and fair elections.” And this framing of his personal scandals as nefarious forces targeting his supporters has cemented his hold on the base.  

    Trump’s refusal to accept any personal responsibility and his ability to double down in a truly pathological way has created a world where his base no longer operates in reality, but instead in a kind of MAGA land. It’s a terrain so profoundly distorted that Trump’s base believes that organizations like the FBI and the CIA are composed almost entirely of liberals whose sole purpose is to hurt their guy, and by extension, them. In this scenario, the act of holding Trump accountable isn’t actually about holding Trump accountable at all. Trump’s indictment is everyone’s fault except for Trump’s. He has an ability to say a lie, like the 2020 election being “stolen,” so many times, and so shamelessly, that much of the GOP base believes it. “The witch-hunts against President Trump have no basis in facts or law. The deranged special counsel and the DoJ have now resorted to prosecutorial misconduct by illegally leaking information to corrupt the legal process and weaponize the justice system in order to manipulate public opinion and conduct election interference, because they are clearly losing all across the board,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung wrote in a statement about the DOJ’s investigation into the classified documents found in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. 

    This kind of post-truth jiujitsu has created a base that is so sticky and so dependent on him, that Republicans, regardless of their feelings toward the former president, seemingly have no choice but to voice their support of Trump—particularly in the face of any legal accountability. His death grip on the GOP base is so strong that even Ron DeSantis, whom the ex-president has spent several weeks disparaging in increasingly inflammatory ways, was seemingly bullied into defending Trump; otherwise it would have looked as though he was out of touch with Republican voters. After news of a looming indictment, the Trump campaign’s official Twitter account posted: “It has been over 24 hours and some people are still quiet. History will judge their silence,” an apparent dig at the Florida governor, Trump’s one real GOP rival. DeSantis, who is widely expected to run for president, has only made subtle jabs at Trump’s scandals, but has felt compelled to attack the investigations into the former president. “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair—I just I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis said at a press conference in mid-March, before calling Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg a “Soros-funded prosecutor.” Around then, DeSantis said he would not be getting “involved” in Trump’s indictment—a comment that Trump-ally and Florida representative Matt Gaetz called a “missed opportunity” on DeSantis’s part. “If Ron DeSantis had come out at that event and said that he would not allow the extradition of president trump to New York I think that would’ve been a very good thing and I think it would’ve reduced the likelihood of charges from Alvin Bragg,” Gaetz said then. When the indictment came out a week later, DeSantis changed his tune; Trumpworld made the indictments about the base, leaving the Florida governor no choice. “Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda,” DeSantis tweeted the day the indictment dropped. And even though DeSantis’s comments were specifically critical of Bragg, and not in support of Trump, it looked like he was rallying around the former president. 

    Even Jeb Bush, theoretically a “Never Trump” Republican, felt it necessary to weigh in. He tweeted Saturday: “Bragg’s predecessor didn’t take up the case. The Justice Department didn’t take up the case. Bragg first said he would not take up the case. This is very political, not a matter of justice. In this case, let the jury be the voters.” There was something profoundly grim about Bush—Jeb!—defending Trump. Who can forget then 90-year-old matriarch Barbara Bush telling Jamie Gangel in 2016 of Trump: “He doesn’t give many answers to how he would solve problems. He sort of makes faces and says insulting things. He’s said terrible things about women, terrible things about the military. I don’t understand why people are for him, for that reason.” The Bush family’s disdain for Trump is hardly secret; but it also best represents the grip Trump has on the Republican party. After all, the dynasty’s younger political hopeful George P. Bush, who unsuccessfully campaigned to be Texas’s attorney general last cycle, endorsed Trump in the 2020 election, and, as Politico noted, has avoided his family’s more negative history with the ex-president. And now, Jeb Bush, who is hardly the center of the GOP, seemingly done with campaigning, and a clear Trump critic, also spoke out against the indictment. 

    Trump’s hold on the party is intractable. And core to his pull is this MAGA notion that the federal government (chiefly the FBI) is evil and out to get not only Trump, but everyone who supports him. He’s got his allies rallying—even rioting—in his defense, his rivals and critics are coming out against efforts to hold him accountable, and he’s got right-wing media in his pocket. Even if Rupert Murdoch isn’t the biggest Trump superfan anymore, he clearly does delight in the fantasy of destroying trust in the federal government. Making his indictments a case against the government hits a GOP sweet spot. And it’s a strategy Trump could ride to the nomination.

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    Molly Jong-Fast

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  • The Trump Arraignment Media Circus Is Underway

    The Trump Arraignment Media Circus Is Underway

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    On a brisk but sunny Monday morning, Lower Manhattan was swarmed with satellite trucks and news crews. In front of the New York State Supreme Court, two TV reporters were doing news hits, with one noting “a very tight security apparatus” and “huge media contingent” anticipating Donald Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday. But the real media circus was situated some 300 feet away, where, across from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office, a mass of white tarps lined the street. The names of various outlets—AP, ABC, NY1, Bloomberg, Fox Business, USA Today, Getty—were scrawled on pieces of duct tape adhered to the concrete in front of their respective canopies. I overheard one cameraman explaining to an evidently confused tourist what they were all doing there as he sipped his coffee, and spotted about a dozen cameras inside Collect Pond Park, where a reporter was standing on a bench doing a TV hit. On the other side of the square was a line of parked satellite trucks. “They said 2:15 tomorrow,” I heard an NYPD officer tell his colleague outside 80 Centre Street. “We’re gonna be removing a lot of vehicles too,” she replied. 

    The city is bracing for the historic arraignment of the former president, whom a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict last week for his role in the 2016 hush-money payout to porn star Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels). TV networks were glued to Trump’s motorcade ride to a Palm Beach airport Monday, en route to New York, and Tuesday’s courtroom appearance is sure to dominate cable news. For the reporters who cover the criminal courts, and are accustomed to high-profile proceedings—such as Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape trial or the 2011 sexual assault case against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, which was later dismissed—the circus surrounding Trump is reaching a whole other level. “I think this is going to dwarf those cases,” said Laura Italiano, who worked at all three New York City tabloids before landing at Insider, where she’s been focusing on Trump’s legal exposure in New York state court. “I’ve been at this for 30 years, and it’s the biggest case in my career.”

    The media frenzy had been building for weeks but the indictment came somewhat out of left field, because, as reporters were told a day earlier, the grand jury was set to break for a previously scheduled hiatus, which would push any indictment of Trump until at least the end of April. “Everything was quiet. Some reporters were planning vacations,” said Patricia Hurtado, who’s been covering courts for Bloomberg for 18 years. “As a veteran court reporter—and I’ve covered federal and state courts for decades—this has been the strangest thing, because it’s been a whiplash,” she told me of the inquiry. “It’s been maddening.” Right before the indictment news broke, Italiano told me she’d just filed a story with a headline along the lines of “This Trump Indictment Long Break Is Not a Sure Thing.” 

    Molly Crane-Newman, who covers the Manhattan federal and state courts for the New York Daily News, was at her desk, located inside the courthouse, when she heard Trump had been indicted. “I shrieked,” she recalled. “I cover all manner of cases in the courts—the high-profile ones, but also the hyper-local ones,” she said, noting that reporting on indictments being filed is “routine” for her. “The process is going to be the same as it would be for any defendant, but obviously most of the defendants aren’t accompanied by Secret Service when they surrender.” 

    When I caught up with the three reporters after the indictment news broke, they were all focused on making sure they’d be able to do their jobs with the rest of the press corps parachuting in. There are a limited number of seats in the courtroom, and Italiano said Insider’s lawyers were “ready preemptively, in case there’s any kind of objectionable limitation on access,” like a pool situation where there’s one camera and one print reporter—“the kind of nightmare that keeps me awake,” as she put it. Crane-Newman pointed to past high-profile trials like Weinstein’s, or El Chapo’s in federal court in Brooklyn. “In those instances, reporters who don’t have in-house credentials have been required to start lining up outside the courthouse the night before,” she said, noting that she was among them for El Chapo, arriving at 11 p.m. the night before. Even that wasn’t enough, she noted: “I was the first reporter in overflow.” 

    For Weinstein’s trial, Hurtado said she got up at 4:30 a.m.—by which time the line was already around the block—to make sure she was there in time. In preparation for Tuesday, Hurtado joked about asking a lawyer she knows, who lives in an apartment building next door to the courthouse, whether she could crash on their floor in a sleeping bag. “It’s a big slog,” she said. Press access to documents may also be a challenge, as it has been with previous high-profile state court cases, said Hurtado, because while the federal court system is electronic, the state court still operates largely on paper. During Weinstein’s trial, reporters were taking photos of the filing with their phones, Hurtado said. “The courthouse system is kind of trapped in 1923,” she said. 

    The chaos might not be limited to the press swarm, as a threat of potential unrest has officers on high alert. Last month, when Trump predicted he would be “arrested on Tuesday,” the former president called on supporters to “protest” and “take our nation back.” At least one of his sycophants in Congress has heeded the call, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that she’s coming to New York on Tuesday to “protest this unprecedented abuse of our justice system and election interference,” and will be headlining a rally planned by the New York Young Republican Club at a nearby park. 

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    Charlotte Klein

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  • Trump expected to surrender Tuesday in New York

    Trump expected to surrender Tuesday in New York

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    Trump expected to surrender Tuesday in New York – CBS News


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    Former President Donald Trump is expected to turn himself in to authorities in New York on Tuesday after he was indicted by a grand jury on charges in connection to hush money payments that were made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Robert Costa has details.

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  • Tornado causes major damage in Arkansas as massive storm system hits Midwest

    Tornado causes major damage in Arkansas as massive storm system hits Midwest

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    Tornado causes major damage in Arkansas as massive storm system hits Midwest – CBS News


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    A powerful tornado tore through Little Rock, Arkansas, on Friday, causing major damage. It’s part of a large storm system affecting tens of millions of people in several parts of the U.S. Roxana Saberi has the latest.

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  • Report: Trump Was Basically One Step Away From Throwing a “No Indictment” Party

    Report: Trump Was Basically One Step Away From Throwing a “No Indictment” Party

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    One of the funniest subplots in the Donald Trump Indictment Show—which centers on the hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016—involves the multiple reports that, after predicting to his followers that he would be arrested on March 21, the ex-president and his allies came to believe he was in the clear.

    Trump, The Washington Post reported late Thursday, “had grown cautiously optimistic” in recent days, after “advisers had counseled him that a possible indictment by a Manhattan grand jury…would not come for some time—if at all.” The former president, the outlet noted, was apparently so unconcerned about the prospect of being charged that he’d “even begun joking about ‘golden handcuffs,’” which is probably not something one does if one thinks there’s a legitimate possibility they might be indicted, convicted, and sentenced to time in prison. “It was a surprise to everybody,” David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser, told the Post, which noted that “some of his lawyers had been preparing to take a few days off.” Following the indictment, The New York Times similarly reported that “Trump and his aides were caught off guard by the timing, believing that any action by the grand jury was still weeks away and might not occur at all.” The paper of record noted that Trump had recently been “telling nearly anyone that he was in a good mood and that he believed the case against him by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, had fallen apart.”

    Of course, the biggest indication that Trump indeed believed he’d outrun Bragg? His taking to Truth Social on Wednesday to write: “I HAVE GAINED SUCH RESPECT FOR THIS GRAND JURY, & PERHAPS EVEN THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM AS A WHOLE…. THE GRAND JURY IS SAYING, HOLD ON, WE ARE NOT A RUBBER STAMP, WHICH MOST GRAND JURIES ARE BRANDED AS BEING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAINST A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE OR AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF LEGAL SCHOLARS ALL SAYING THERE IS NO CASE HERE.” Sure, that could have been an unabashed attempt to sway the jurors through flattery—but, in retrospect, those very much sound like the words of a man who was extremely confident he was not going to be indicted. “Such respect”! “The grand jury system as a whole”! “The grand jury is saying, hold on”! Do you think he still stands by these statements? If there were ever a time for the internet-ism “ROTFLMAO,” it would be now.

    In related news, according to the Times, Trump was less focused on “the legal consequences” of the indictment Thursday than “the political implications.” Trump previously said he would not drop out of the 2024 presidential race if charged, boldly claiming that being indicted might actually help his chances of making it back to the White House. One adviser told the Post that the ex-president and current presidential candidate is planning to “milk [the indictment] for all it’s worth politically.” And while Trump has reportedly raised millions since he first claimed he’d be arrested earlier this month, it does not appear that people are reacting exactly as he had hoped.

    Per the Post:

    The causeway that leads to Mar-a-Lago has long been a rally spot for Trump supporters, especially during his presidency, when they would regularly gather to cheer on his motorcade. But as the sun set along the causeway Thursday, more people were fishing for sand perch and croaker than had shown up to support the former president. Shortly before 8 p.m., only a half dozen Trump supporters had amassed in their usual spot.

    Meanwhile, according to the Times, on Thursday, “a large group of former Trump Organization employees was quietly cheering the latest developments via text messages.”

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    Bess Levin

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  • Trump: ‘All Arrests Are Politically Motivated As The Legal System Is The Codified Exercise Of Political Power’

    Trump: ‘All Arrests Are Politically Motivated As The Legal System Is The Codified Exercise Of Political Power’

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    PALM BEACH, FL—Responding to the news that the Manhattan District Attorney had indicted him over payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, former President Donald Trump denounced the move Friday, telling reporters, “All arrests are politically motivated, as the legal system is the codified exercise of political power.” “This indictment is obviously an attempt by the Democrats to use against me the complex webs of power relations that influence the nature of rights and consequences in a given society and that we conceptualize as a legal system,” Trump said before quoting verbatim a passage from political philosopher Michel Foucault that reads, “The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the ‘social-worker’-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based.” “This is nothing more than a political witch hunt carried out by corrupt Democratic officials using the law as a political cudgel, as it intrinsically is, because what is the law but a system by which the powerful may enforce adherence to certain rules and strictures among the less powerful? These Soros-backed Manhattanites are using the United States legal system as clarified in the landmark 1803 case Marbury v. Madison—which established the Constitution, and therefore America’s legal system, as not merely a set of principles but as the actual law of the land—to target me for what they claim is a violation of those laws. Yet I remind them that until now no American president has ever been indicted, which is as clear an example of the politically charged nature of the law as I can think of. Legal positivism, as understood by Jeremy Bentham and others, tells us that there is not necessarily a connection between morality and the law, and so it follows that a so-called lawbreaking act that may be considered punishable in some cases is left unpunished in others. Is that discrepancy not, then, a question of political power? For even such an act as taking another human life is deemed effectively above the law in some cases, if we are to follow the Schmittian logic of the sovereign state of exception. What these partisan hacks need to get through their thick skulls is that political concerns are permitted, by general agreement, or at least by the threat of state violence standing in for democratic accord, to make legal structures and consequences selectively applicable. But this is just another example of big-city legal departments wielding the law for political aims. I mean, seriously, just look at how the law is selectively enforced on the Black populations of U.S. cities, with arrest and incarceration rates far outstripping those of whites. The critical race theories of Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and others are instructive on this point, positing that legal progress for Black people only occurs when it converges with the political interests of the white elite. Of course, I’d expect nothing less from a sad, declining country where political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” At press time, numerous Republican officials, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, had come out in agreement that Trump’s arrest was politically motivated by tweeting passages on legal relativism from The Common Law by the late Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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  • Donald Trump Jr. Likens His Father’s Indictment to the Murder of Tens of Millions of People

    Donald Trump Jr. Likens His Father’s Indictment to the Murder of Tens of Millions of People

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    By now you’ve likely learned that on Thursday, a grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump for his role in a 2016 hush money payout to porn star Stormy Daniels and is expected to surrender to the Manhattan district attorney’s office next week to be arraigned. Given that both (1) no former US president in history has ever been charged with a crime and (2) Trump has spent his entire life evading any and all repercussions for his actions, this was obviously a massive and shocking turn of events. For his part, the ex-president, unsurprisingly, did not take the news very well, issuing a multi-paragraph tirade referencing Russia, George Soros, “Radical Left Democrats,” “Crooked Democrats,” witch hunts, and Joe Biden (he’s also blasted unhinged posts on Truth Social). But how‘s the news gone over with his children? Also not great!

    Immediately following the news of the grand jury vote, Donald Trump Jr. posted a video response in which he claimed that the mere act of his father being held to the letter of the law was exponentially worse than anything some of history’s worst dictators ever did. “Let’s be clear, folks,” Trump’s namesake told his viewers. “This is like Communist-level shit. This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot—it would make them blush. It’s so flagrant, it’s so crazed. When even like the radical leftists of The Washington Post are out there saying, ‘it’s not really based on fact, it’s not really based on the law, it’s not really based in reality, but it’s 100% based on politics’—when your enemies are saying that, it’s got to tell you everything you need to know about where we are as a country.” 

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    Just as an aside, it’s not clear that The Washington Post has ever said the case against Trump is not “based on fact” or “based on the law.” Also, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people, so we’re not sure that they’d look at Trump being indicted—for something he admitted to!—and be all “Whoa, whoa, this is a bit much.” Elsewhere, Junior has tweeted, “The ruling party is trying to jail the opposition leader like a third world dictatorship!” and “This isn’t just the radical left weaponizing the government to target their political enemies, this is them weaponizing the government to interfere in the 2024 election to stop Trump. The only solution is to shove it down their throats and put him back in the White House!!!”

    Eric Trump has also been out on social media decrying the news. Among other things, he’s declared:

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    And:

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    Bess Levin

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  • Trump faces about 30 criminal counts for document fraud in New York indictment

    Trump faces about 30 criminal counts for document fraud in New York indictment

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    U.S. President Donald Trump delivers an update on the so-called Operation Warp Speed program, the joint Defense Department and HHS initiative that has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in an address from the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 13, 2020.

    Carlos Barria | Reuters

    Former President Donald Trump has been hit with about 30 criminal charges related to alleged document fraud in the indictment issued against him by a New York grand jury, NBC reported Friday.

    The indictment, which was approved Thursday, remains sealed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

    Trump, who is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is scheduled to be arraigned in Manhattan court on Tuesday.

    At least part, if not all, of the indictment is understood to be related to Trump’s reimbursement of his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

    The Trump Organization recorded payments that Trump made to Cohen for that purpose as “legal expenses.”

    It is a misdemeanor under New York law to misclassify business expenses. That can become a felony if done to cover up another crime.

    Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid to keep silent about her claim that she had sex with Trump in 2006. He denies her account.

    Trump is the first U.S. president, former or otherwise, to be charged in a criminal case.

    A Quinnipiac University poll released this week found that a majority of Americans believe that Trump should be disqualified from running for the White House if he is charged with a crime.

    However, there is no law against Trump seeking the presidency while facing charges.

    Follow our live coverage of the NY grand jury’s indictment of former President Donald Trump.

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  • Trump indicted by New York City grand jury

    Trump indicted by New York City grand jury

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    Trump indicted by New York City grand jury – CBS News


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    Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a New York City grand jury on financial crimes related to “hush money” payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges. Robert Costa reports.

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  • New York grand jury indicts former President Donald Trump in hush money payment case

    New York grand jury indicts former President Donald Trump in hush money payment case

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    A New York grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, his lawyer told CNBC.

    Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told NBC News that Trump is expected to surrender to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office early next week.

    Trump is the first former president to be charged with a crime, a development that will reverberate around the country. The indictment comes as he is the leading contender seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

    The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed the indictment Thursday evening.

    “This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” said a spokesperson for Bragg’s office.

    The number of charges Trump faces in the indictment was not disclosed Thursday. And it was not known whether the indictment was limited to conduct related to the payment to Daniels or if it also includes conduct surrounding a separate hush money payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal by the publisher of The National Enquirer.

    Trump blasted the decision, calling it “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.” Just Wednesday, he had said in a social media post that he had “gained such respect for this grand jury.”

    The charge stems from the district attorney’s investigation into how the Trump Organization recorded a reimbursement to Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen after Cohen paid Daniels, who’s also known as Stephanie Clifford, to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.

    Follow our live coverage of the New York grand jury vote to indict former President Donald Trump.

    Trump was filming his TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” at the time of that purported tryst, and was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, who had given birth to their son, Barron, a few months earlier.

    The Trump Organization in business records described the reimbursement to Cohen as a legal expense.

    Falsifying business records is normally a misdemeanor under New York law, but can be elevated to a felony if the misstatement was done to cover up another crime.

    Trump denies having sex with Daniels or committing wrongdoing of any kind.

    “This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” Trump said in a 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.”

    Tacopina and another Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said: “President Trump has been indicted.  He did not commit any crime.”

    “We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court,” the defense lawyers said.

    The indictment, which will be prosecuted by Bragg’s office, is the first in what could end up being several criminal cases against Trump, the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

    Trump is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in two separate criminal cases. One is related to his efforts to overturn the Electoral College victory of President Joe Biden in the 2020 election as he made false claims of widespread ballot fraud in the popular vote that year. The other probe is focused on Trump’s removal of government records from the White House, and whether he obstructed justice by keeping them at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, for more than a year as government officials sought their return.

    A state prosecutor in Atlanta is also separately investigating Trump and a number of his allies over their attempt to get Georgia officials to reverse his loss to Biden in the state in 2020.

    Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, March 25, 2023.

    Brandon Bell | Getty Images

    Cohen, in a statement to NBC News, said: “For the first time in our Country’s history, a President (current or former) of the United States has been indicted. I take no pride in issuing this statement and wish to also remind everyone of the presumption of innocence; as provided by the due process clause.”

    “However, I do take solace in validating the adage that no one is above the law; not even a former President,” Cohen said. “Today’s indictment is not the end of this chapter; but rather, just the beginning. Now that the charges have been filed, it is better for the case to let the indictment speak for itself. The two things I wish to say at this time is that accountability matters and I stand by my testimony and the evidence I have provided to” the Manhattan district attorney, he said.

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    The Manhattan prosecution of Trump comes more than four years after Cohen, who loyally served him for years before that, turned on Trump and began cooperating with federal, state and local law enforcement officials in New York.

    Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal criminal charges that included campaign finance violations for both the Daniels payment and a separate payment he facilitated to McDougal, the former Playboy model, to buy her silence over an affair she said she started with Trump in 2006.

    The Federal Election Commission in 2021 fined the publisher of The National Enquirer $187,500 for “knowingly and willfully” violating campaign law by paying McDougal a $150,000 “catch and kill” fee to buy her story and bury it ahead of the 2016 election.

    Michael Cohen, former attorney for former U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives to the New York Courthouse in New York City, U.S., March 13, 2023. 

    Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

    Cohen said the payments were designed to protect Trump’s chances in that election, when he faced Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump escaped punishment from the FEC.

    Cohen met 20 times with investigators from the DA’s office before testifying over two days last week before the grand jury in Manhattan Criminal Court. That panel began meeting in late January and heard testimony from multiple witnesses before Cohen.

    Trump and a number of Republican elected officials have accused Bragg, who is a Democrat, of pursuing the investigation to harm him politically.

    Bragg’s focus on the payment to Daniels in recent months came as a surprise, as it was considered by many to be the weakest possible criminal case against Trump in a probe that began four years ago under Bragg’s predecessor as DA, Cyrus Vance Jr.

    Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels speaks US Federal Court with her lawyer Michael Avenatti (R) on April 16, 2018, in Lower Manhattan, New York.

    Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | AFP | Getty Images

    In February 2022, two top prosecutors who were working on the investigation quit after Bragg indicated he was suspending the probe.

    At the time, that investigation was focused on Cohen’s allegations that Trump and the Trump Organization reported different values for the same real estate properties to lower their tax burden and insurance costs and to maximize the value of loans against them, among other things.

    One of the prosecutors, Mark Pomerantz, in his resignation letter said Trump was “guilty of numerous felony violations,” which related to the “preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition,” which “were false.”

    Attorney General Letitia James in September filed a civil lawsuit seeking at least $250 million in penalties from Trump, his company, and three of his adult children, alleging widespread fraud in financial statements.

    James’ lawsuit, which is headed to trial later this year, seeks to permanently bar Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump from serving as an officer of a company in New York and permanently prohibit the Trump companies named in the suit from doing business in New York state.

    In December, a Manhattan jury convicted two subsidiaries of the Trump Organization of multiple crimes related to a scheme that since 2005 had sought to avoid paying taxes on executive compensation in the form of perks including free apartments and luxury cars to then-chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.

    Trump was not personally charged in that case, but he “knew exactly what was going on,” a prosecutor said in closing arguments in Manhattan Supreme Court.

    The Trump subsidiaries convicted in the case were fined $1.6 million for the scheme in January at sentencing.

    Weisselberg, who had pleaded guilty in that case in August, was sentenced in January to five months in jail. He is scheduled to be released from the notorious Rikers Island jail on April 19, which factors in time off his sentence for good behavior.

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  • Read Live Updates On NY Grand Jury Indictment Of Trump

    Read Live Updates On NY Grand Jury Indictment Of Trump

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    Trump has already released a statement on the news of his indictment, calling it “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”

    “I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,” Trump said.

    “The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he added, referencing the Manhattan district attorney.

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  • Grand Jury Votes to Indict Trump: Ex-President’s Odds of Prison Time Just Shot Up

    Grand Jury Votes to Indict Trump: Ex-President’s Odds of Prison Time Just Shot Up

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    Donald Trump is one step closer to being criminally charged, and potentially serving time in prison, after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him for his role in the 2016 hush money payout to porn star Stephanie Clifford a.k.a. Stormy Daniels. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said: “This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”

    Shortly after the news broke, Trump issued a multi-paragraph tirade in which he referenced Russia, George Soros, “Radical Left Democrats,” “Crooked Democrats,” witch hunts, and Joe Biden.

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    Later, on Truth Social, he told his followers that he had been “indicated.”

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    Bragg’s office began presenting evidence to a grand jury at the end of January, signaling that a charging decision was imminent. Among the witnesses who testified were former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, longtime Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen’s testimony was presumably of significant interest to prosecutors, given that he was the actual person who paid Daniels the $130,000 in October 2016 to keep her quiet, and pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the hush money deal.

    Cohen has previously said he arranged the hush money payoff at Trump’s direction; he told Congress that he was reimbursed for the $130,000 while Trump was in office, with the then president personally signing checks each month. Asked why the reimbursement was spread out over approximately a year’s time instead of being taken care of in one fell swoop, Cohen said it was “in order to hide what the payment was,” and that it was meant to “look like a retainer.” And Trump, he testified under oath, “knew about everything.” Speaking to reporters after he testified before the grand jury in mid-March, Cohen said: “My position is that, at the end of the day, Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds, if in fact that’s the way that the facts play out.”

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    Daniels herself met with prosecutors on March 15.

    While a conviction is in no way a sure thing, should he be found guilty, Trump could go to prison for up to four years. Asked earlier this month if he would drop out of the 2024 presidential race if he were to be indicted, the ex-president and current presidential candidate responded: “I wouldn’t even think about leaving,” adding that criminal charges would “probably…enhance my numbers.”

    Of course, today’s news is far from the only legal issue Trump is facing. The Justice Department is currently running a pair of criminal investigations into both his handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. In January, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who has been investigating Trump and his allies’ attempt to overturn the election in Georgia, said charging decisions in that case would be coming soon.

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  • Trump Is One Day Away From Sending the Grand Jury Deciding His Fate Expensive Wine and Chocolates

    Trump Is One Day Away From Sending the Grand Jury Deciding His Fate Expensive Wine and Chocolates

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    Donald Trump has spent a large part of this last month viciously attacking Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, seemingly in the hopes of either (1) avoiding being indicted for the 2016 hush money scheme involving Stormy Daniels; or (2) inspiring violence against the prosecutor in the event he is actually criminally charged. On Wednesday, though, he appeared to debut a new strategy: kiss the grand jury’s ass.

    Just after 8 a.m., the former president took to his social media account—which he started after Twitter banned him for inciting a riot that left multiple people dead—and wrote: “I HAVE GAINED SUCH RESPECT FOR THIS GRAND JURY, & PERHAPS EVEN THE GRAND JURY SYSTEM AS A WHOLE. THE EVIDENCE IS SO OVERWHELMING IN MY FAVOR, & SO RIDICULOUSLY BAD FOR THE HIGHLY PARTISAN & HATEFUL DISTRICT ATTORNEY, THAT THE GRAND JURY IS SAYING, HOLD ON, WE ARE NOT A RUBBER STAMP, WHICH MOST GRAND JURIES ARE BRANDED AS BEING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAINST A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE OR AGAINST LARGE NUMBERS OF LEGAL SCHOLARS ALL SAYING THERE IS NO CASE HERE. DROP THIS SICK WITCH HUNT, NOW!”

    Obviously, the attacks on Bragg—the first Black person to serve as Manhattan’s top prosecutor—are still there. But there’s also the very cringeworthy attempt to flatter and influence the members of the jury, which some people think might not be legal.

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    Trump, of course, has not yet been charged despite literally claiming earlier this month that he would be arrested on Tuesday of last week, which brought the news cycle into an indictment-watch frenzy.

    Meanwhile, recent reports have suggested, for different reasons, that should Trump be indicted, it might not happen until several weeks from now. On Wednesday, Politico noted that the grand jury examining the hush money case isn’t expected to hear evidence “for the next month largely due to a previously scheduled hiatus,” which would “push any indictment of the former president to late April at the earliest.” One day prior, Insider reported that it’s possible the jury has already decided whether or not to charge the ex-president, but the DA’s office may have decided to “slow-walk the post-vote process for days, forestalling the moment when Trump is officially indicted, as is in their discretion and power to do,” according to legal experts.

    Like Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis reportedly shuns digital communication

    Unlike with Trump, this appears to be less about being a Luddite and more about not creating a paper trail. Per Semafor:

    If you’re waiting for a text or email back from Florida gov. Ron DeSantis, don’t hold your breath: The governor, at least in his official capacity, doesn’t text or email, according to two people familiar with his operation…. Sources pointed to Florida’s unusually broad laws allowing the public access to a whole host of information—the Sunshine Law and the Public Records Law—as another possible reason why DeSantis avoids electronic communication. The combined laws grant access to records and detailed information on government proceedings and meetings.

    “He is enemy number one for a lot of people,” one source said of DeSantis, adding that the governor had nothing in particular to hide. “I think that’s more of taking a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach.” In fact, when you email with the governor’s official office, a disclaimer alluding to the law can often be found at the bottom of emails: “Please note that under Florida law correspondence sent to the Governor’s Office, which is not confidential or exempt pursuant to chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes, is a public record made available upon request.”

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  • ‘Daily Show’ Guest Host John Leguizamo Spots Trump’s Awkward Melania Moment

    ‘Daily Show’ Guest Host John Leguizamo Spots Trump’s Awkward Melania Moment

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    The former president is under investigation over hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, allegedly to keep silent about an affair. At his rally, Trump denied having an affair, insulted her looks and claimed he “never liked” her.

    “That wouldn’t be the one,” he said, then appeared to catch himself. “There is no ‘one.’ We have a great first lady.”

    Leguizamo shook his head as he came back on camera.

    “Wow. Nice save, bro,” he said sarcastically. “You can actually see his brain try to turn the car around that his mouth was driving.”

    Then he broke out his admittedly awful impression of Trump.

    “I didn’t have an affair and I never had an affair and I actually never had sex, did you know that? I’m a virgin and the best and biggest virgin ever,” he said.

    See more in his Monday night monologue… including a second attempt at his Trump impression:

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  • Grand jury investigating Trump payments reconvenes

    Grand jury investigating Trump payments reconvenes

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    Grand jury investigating Trump payments reconvenes – CBS News


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    The grand jury investigating alleged hush money payments made by former President Trump to adult film actress Stormy Daniels reconvened on Monday. The grand jury heard testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. Robert Costa reports.

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  • Report: Melania Trump Is Still Pissed About Stormy Daniels, Has No Sympathy About Trump Facing Prison Time

    Report: Melania Trump Is Still Pissed About Stormy Daniels, Has No Sympathy About Trump Facing Prison Time

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    One of the most obvious takeaways from Donald Trump’s time in the White House—in addition to the determination that (1) people working for him should have received hazard pay and (2) he should never be allowed within 10,000 feet of the place again, not even as a chaperone for a school trip—was that the then first lady, Melania Trump, absolutely despised him. And it appears those feelings have not changed in the two-plus years since the duo left Washington!

    According to a new report, Melania remains “angry” at her husband over the alleged affair he had with porn star Stormy Daniels, which could result in his being indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office at some point in the near future, thanks to the hush money he paid to keep Daniels quiet in 2016. (Though the ex-president has denied sleeping with the adult-film star, he has admitted to the $130,000 deal brokered by his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen on the eve of the 2020 election, which Trump subsequently reimbursed Cohen for during his first year in office.) And while it doesn’t seem unreasonable for Melania to still be upset about her husband allegedly cheating on her—just months after she gave birth, according to Daniels—her negative feelings for him apparently run so deep that she doesn’t seem to give a f–k if he is criminally charged. The former first lady, a source familiar with the matter told People, “wants to ignore” the whole thing and “hopes it will pass,” but “doesn’t sympathize with Donald’s plight.”

    Not only that, but, according to the same source, the former FLOTUS really wouldn’t be put out in the slightest if her spouse did time behind bars. “Melania loves the beautiful weather and resort town atmosphere of Palm Beach,” this person told reporter Linda Marx. “She is happy when she is in Palm Beach. She has her son and other close family members. They are tribe-like and usually stick together. Despite what happens to Donald, she will be fine. She is well taken care of.”

    In related news, it appears that at least two other family members won’t be holding any press conferences to decry the potential charges or claim Trump is the victim of witch hunt. According to the New York Post, former senior presidential advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner “want nothing to do with this. They are staying away and don’t want to be hounded by reporters. I don’t think you will see them defending him—it will be no comment.” (In November, despite his reported begging, Ivanka declined to show up when her father announced his third bid for office, later saying in an official statement that she would not participate in his campaign.)

    Obviously, this all stands in contrast to the online ravings of Donald Trump Jr., who seems prepared to chain himself to the door of the Manhattan DA’s office until prosecutors agree to leave his dad alone.

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  • Trump holds Texas rally with possible indictment looming

    Trump holds Texas rally with possible indictment looming

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    Trump holds Texas rally with possible indictment looming – CBS News


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    Former President Donald Trump was holding a campaign rally in Waco, Texas, on Saturday as he faces the prospect of a possible indictment in New York. Caitlin Huey-Burns has the details.

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  • Before he represented Trump, defense attorney speculated Stormy Daniels saga was true and payment could be seen as an in-kind campaign contribution | CNN Politics

    Before he represented Trump, defense attorney speculated Stormy Daniels saga was true and payment could be seen as an in-kind campaign contribution | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump’s defense attorney repeatedly speculated as a legal pundit that Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels likely happened and that the $130,000 payment made to Daniels days before the 2016 election could be seen as an in-kind campaign contribution, contradicting his recent legal and public defense of Trump.

    Joe Tacopina, a defense attorney representing Trump in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigation of Trump, made the comments in 2018 as a prominent legal commentator – years before he would ultimately represent the former president in the case that may indict Trump.

    In multiple appearances on CNN in the spring of 2018, Tacopina speculated that Trump had an affair with Daniels after she detailed their encounter and because “to me, you know it means it’s true because he hasn’t threatened to sue” nor did he tweet about it. He also said that as a lawyer, he would have advised Trump to admit to the affair and move on.

    “I mean, it’s remarkable when you talk about the president of the United States, but it, honestly, it’s not remarkable when you’re talking about Donald Trump, the president of the United States,” Tacopina said. “No one was here, is going, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this!’ This is why I’ve been saying since day one if they had just said, ‘Yeah, OK.’ I mean, he survived much greater – I don’t even know if they’re called scandals – but episodes than this. This is from 2006. I mean, this is way before he was the president.”

    “I’ve said all along, if he had just come out and said, ‘Yeah, I did. So what?’ And just chalk that up to another one of the things on his list of minor scandals, he gets through,” said Tacopina in another appearance on CNN in 2018.

    “But she went into great detail about her one-night stand with him. What else can she say? There is nothing else to tell,” added Tacopina.

    And in the spring of 2018, Tacopina acknowledged that the episode could put Trump in jeopardy “because this could be looked as an in-kind contribution at the time of the election. This is a real problem. And they both, and I’m telling you this, the reason we’re here, I strongly believe is because of the words of both Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.”

    But five years later, acting as Trump’s defense attorney, Tacopina reversed his argument, calling the payment to Daniels “plain extortion,” dismissing potential campaign finance violations and repeating Trump’s denials that he ever had the affair.

    “This was a plain extortion. And I don’t know, since when we’ve decided to start prosecuting extortion victims. He’s denied, vehemently denied, this affair,” said Tacopina on “Good Morning America” last week. “But he had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was gonna be publicly embarrassing to him, regardless of the campaign. And the campaign finance laws are very, very clear, George, that you cannot have something that’s even primarily related to the campaign to be considered campaign finance law.”

    In a statement to CNN, Tacopina said that he offered his opinion based on a hypothetical and that “my mind hadn’t changed about the issue but what has changed is that I learned the facts.”

    The comment is just one of many that Tacopina made about the former president, according to a CNN KFile review of other comments. In one appearance, made in February 2021 on WABC radio, a local New York station, Tacopina said Trump deserved impeachment for his verbal attacks inciting his supporters – who he called “a bunch of idiots” and “lunatics” – to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    “I don’t think he did anything criminal,” Tacopina said on WABC in February 2021 when discussing the riot. “Did I think he did something impeachable? Yes, I do.”

    “Do I think they’re divisive? Yes. Do I think he spreads hate? Yes. Do I think everything he’s done is wrong? No. Do I think he did some good things? Yes. So I like to just sort of call it like I see it, and I’m not so partisan one way or another,” Tacopina continued. “But you know, when you say to a bunch of lunatics, a bunch of, you know, people who have had a propensity towards violence. Before these groups that are gathered, you know, which was a planned gathering, ‘Hey, go to the Capitol and fight and fight.’ Fight for what? Go to the Capitol and fight for what does fight mean to these idiots? What do you think it meant?…They killed people.”

    “Do I think he thought they were gonna break some windows and do some things? Absolutely,” he later added.

    Tacopina would later represent one of the Capitol rioters who assaulted Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who later died of natural causes on January 7; the rioter was sentenced to 80 months in prison.

    Tacopina also previously criticized the former president for attacking the justice system.

    “This is the Justice Department, how it works every single day of the week. But for some reason, the president cannot cope with that,” said Tacopina in 2018.

    “What chills me as a lawyer, forget about being a defense lawyer or a former prosecutor as I am, is that our president is attacking the foundation of our justice system in this country by calling to question the FBI, the Justice Department, his own attorney general, every judge whoever rules against him. Yeah, it’s just unhealthy for the sort of the health of this justice system.”

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  • Trump, Who Incited a Violent Riot After Losing the Election, Calls for “Death and Destruction” If He’s Indicted

    Trump, Who Incited a Violent Riot After Losing the Election, Calls for “Death and Destruction” If He’s Indicted

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    Days after instructing his supporters to “PROTEST” and “TAKE OUR NATION BACK,” Donald Trump warned in a series of extremely disturbing social media posts that “death and destruction” could come down upon the United States should he be criminally indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

    Early Friday morning, in a clear reference to Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, the ex-president wrote, “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] hates the USA!”

    Hours earlier, in an even more pointed post, he raged, “Isn’t it terrible that D.A. Bragg refuses to do the right thing and ‘call it a day?’ He would rather indict an innocent man and create years of hatred, chaos, and turmoil, than give him his well deserved ‘freedom.’ The whole Country sees what is going on, and they’re not going to take it anymore. They’ve had enough! There was no Error made, No Misdemeanor, No Crime and, above all, NO CASE. They spied on my campaign, Rigged the Election, falsely Impeached, cheated and lied. They are HUMAN SCUM!”

    Elsewhere, Trump posted a link to a story that included an image of him brandishing a baseball bat next to a photo of Bragg’s face.

    Bragg is said to be weighing charges against Trump related to the 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. The New York Times reported on Friday that “although there have been several signals that Mr. Bragg’s office is close to an indictment, the exact timing of any charges remains unknown.” Over the weekend, Bragg told employees, “Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment.”

    While Trump’s rants would be disturbing enough on their own, they’re obviously even more concerning in light of the events that took place on January 6, 2021, in which Trump told his followers, shortly before the deadly attack on the Capitol, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” As DC watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote on Twitter, “Trump got his supporters to attack the government once. He’s making it clear that if he’s arrested, he’s going to try to do it again.”

    Meanwhile, here’s how House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan responded to all that:

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  • The President Has Fallen: What To Know About Trump’s Potential Indictment

    The President Has Fallen: What To Know About Trump’s Potential Indictment

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    Former President Donald Trump is facing a potential indictment by the Manhattan district attorney over alleged hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, setting off a national firestorm of controversy. The Onion tells you everything you need to know about Trump’s potential indictment.

    Q: What is Trump being charged with?
    A: Botching a layup crime that anyone with his wealth should have gotten away with no problem.

    Q: Who is bringing the charges against him?
    A: Rich, out-of-touch New Yorkers who could never understand Trump’s middle-class heartland values.

    Q: Why wasn’t Trump arrested on Tuesday like he said he would be? A: This was a rare instance of the usually prudent former president posting before thinking.

    Q: Is this the first time a former president has been indicted?
    A: No, Jimmy Carter was found guilty of leading one of the biggest credit card skimming rings in history.

    G/O Media may get a commission

    Q: Will there be riots in response to his arrest? 
    A: The correct term for when white people smash things is “demonstration.”

    Q: How is the media covering this story? 
    A: They’re striving to hit that sweet spot of breathless and reckless.

    Q: Would imprisonment impact Trump’s 2024 presidential candidacy?
    A: Trump has vowed to run for president from prison just like his hero Eugene Debs.

    Q: What does it tell us as a nation that Trump is the first U.S. president ever criminally charged?
    A: That The Hague has really been slacking off.

    Q: So will Trump go to prison? 
    A: In a way, he has been in a prison of his own privilege his whole life, but no.

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