(Trends Wide) — Donald Trump, the first former president in history to face criminal charges, is heading to New York this week for an expected appearance on Tuesday after being indicted last week by a Manhattan grand jury.
The long-awaited voluntary nomination of the former president and candidate for the White House in 2024 will be a unique affair in more ways than one, both for the Manhattan prosecutor’s office and the New York court where he will be tried, and for a nation pending how he will shake up the Party’s presidential primaries. Republican.
The former president remained “surprisingly calm,” spending the weekend in Florida playing golf and pondering how to use it to fuel his campaign, Trends Wide reported Sunday night, after an allegation that stunned him and his advisers.” off guard.”
Trump faces more than 30 charges related to business fraud, Trends Wide reported, but the charge remains under wraps.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money and cover-up scheme involving adult film star Stormy Daniels dating back to the 2016 presidential election. Trump and his allies have already attacked Bragg, and a speech scheduled for Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago will likely give Trump more opportunities to claim he is being politically persecuted.
This is what we know about the expected appearance.
Will Trump be handcuffed?
Even before Trump’s appearance, his presence will be felt in the Manhattan courthouse this Tuesday, as all trials and most other judicial activity are halted before his arrival.
The Secret Service, the New York Police Department and judicial officials are coordinating security for Trump’s long-awaited appearance. The Secret Service is scheduled to escort Trump in the early afternoon to the district attorney’s office, which is in the same building as the courthouse.
Trump will be booked by investigators, which includes taking his fingerprints. Normally, he would have a mugshot taken of him. But sources familiar with the preparations were not sure a mugshot would be made, because Trump’s appearance is widely known and authorities were concerned that the photo would be improperly leaked, which would be in violation of state law.
Normally, when a defendant is arrested, he is placed in a cell near the courtroom before his appearance. But that will not happen with Trump. Once the former president has finished processing, he will be led through a set of corridors and elevators to the floor where the courtroom is located. He will then go out to a public corridor to enter the room.
Trump is not expected to be handcuffed as he will be surrounded by armed federal agents for his protection.
“Obviously, this is different. It’s never happened before. I’ve never had the Secret Service involved in an appearance at 100 Center Street before,” Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said on “State of the Union.” on Trends Wide on Sunday. “Everything about Tuesday is still very much up in the air, apart from the fact that we will say very loudly and proudly that we are not guilty.”
In the afternoon, Trump is expected to be ushered into the courtroom, where the indictment will be unsealed and he will formally face the charges. Following his arraignment, Trump will almost certainly be out on bail. It is possible, though perhaps unlikely, that travel conditions will be placed on you.
Normally, a released defendant would walk out the front door, but the Secret Service will want to limit the time and space that Trump is in public. So, once he finishes the hearing, Trump is expected to walk back down the public hallway and head to the back halls of the district attorney’s office, where he will await his entourage.
He will then head to the airport so he can return to Mar-a-Lago, where he is scheduled to have a public speaking event that night.
Will the appearance be televised?
Several media outlets, including Trends Wide, have asked a New York judge to unblock the indictment and permission to broadcast Trump’s long-awaited courtroom appearance on Tuesday.
The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are some of the media that submitted the request.
The news organizations ask that a “limited number of photographers, videographers, and radio journalists be present at the appearance,” saying in the letter that they are making “this limited request for audiovisual coverage to ensure that security operations the Court will not be interrupted in any way”.
If the judge does not grant the media’s request for disclosure, the indictment is expected to be made public when Trump appears in court.
Who is the presiding judge?
Judge Juan Merchán is no stranger to Trump’s orbit.
Merchán, an acting New York Supreme Court justice, sentenced Allen Weisselberg, a close Trump confidante, to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and oversaw the criminal fraud case of former adviser Steve Bannon.
Merchan can’t stand interruptions or delays, lawyers who have appeared before him told Trends Wide, and he is known for maintaining control of his courtroom even when his cases attract considerable attention.
Trump’s attorney Timothy Parlatore said during an interview on Trends Wide Friday that Merchan “didn’t go easy” on him when he tried a case before him, but that he would probably be fair.
“I’ve had a case before him before. It can be tough. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be something that’s going to change his ability to assess the facts and the law in this case,” Parlatore said.
How could the Trump team fight the charges?
Tacopina told Trends Wide’s Dana Bash on Sunday that the former president will plead not guilty. His team “will look at every possible issue that we can challenge, and we will,” Tacopina said.
The Trump team’s judicial strategy could focus on challenging the case because it could be based on business record entries that prosecutors link to hush money payments to Daniels seven years ago, beyond the statute of limitations for a criminal case. Tacopina suggested in television interviews Sunday that the statute of limitations may have passed, saying Trump’s businesses did not make false entries.
Trump’s legal team is not currently considering moving the case to another New York district, Tacopina said. “There hasn’t been any discussion of that at all,” she told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in another interview on Sunday. “It’s too early to start worrying about venue changes until we actually see the prosecution and deal with the legal issues.”
How does this affect the Trump campaign?
Trump’s political advisers over the weekend were actively discussing how to best campaign the impeachment they have portrayed as a political hoax and witch hunt, according to sources close to Trump.
His team has spent the past few days presenting the former president with polls showing him with a growing lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, currently considered Trump’s biggest rival for 2024, in a head-to-head. And his team says he has raised more than $5 million since he was indicted Thursday.
Despite the initial shock of the impeachment, Trump remained surprisingly calm and focused in the days leading up to his court appearance, Trends Wide’s Kristen Holmes reported.
The former president appears to have saved his anger for his social media, intensifying his attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and issuing threats.
Many of Trump’s allies, critics and likely opponents in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries have similarly attacked Bragg before and after the impeachment.
But former Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his presidential campaign on Sunday, doubled down on his call for Trump to drop out of the race now that he faces criminal charges.
“The office is more important than any individual person. So for the sake of the office of the presidency, I think it’s too much of a sideshow and distraction,” Hutchinson said in an interview on ABC News. “You have to be able to focus on your due process.”
John Miller, Jeremy Herb, Katelyn Polantz, Tierney Sneed, Sydney Kashiwagi, Kristen Holmes, Holmes Lybrand, Hannah Rabinowitz, Paula Reid, Alayna Treene, Gregory Clary y Devan Cole, de Trends Wide, contribuyeron a este reportaje.