Former US President Donald Trump’s private airplane often known as Trump Force One is parked on the tarmac on the Palm Beach International Airport on March 31, 2023 in West Palm Beach, Florida. –
Giorgio Viera | AFP | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump left his Florida home Monday, headed for a plane that can fly him to Latest York’s LaGuardia Airport to give up to face criminal charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump is resulting from be arraigned Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where a grand jury indicted him Thursday.
“On Tuesday morning I will likely be going to, imagine it or not, the Courthouse,” he wrote in a Truth Social post from his residence in Palm Beach, Florida, late Sunday night.
“America was not alleged to be this fashion!” Trump added.
Trump left Mar-a-Lago at around 12:20 p.m. ET in a motorcade of SUVs.
Trump has said he’ll give a speech Tuesday night about his criminal case after he returns to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
A small group of Trump supporters gathered Monday morning outside the club, waiting for his departure.
In Manhattan, the Latest York Police Department and other law enforcement agencies continued preparations for Trump’s arrival and potential protests.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on this screen grab taken from a social media video released April 2, 2023, after his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Social Media Website | Via Reuters
On Sunday afternoon, news camera crews already had arrange posts outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and outdoors the courthouse, positioned lower than 4 miles due south of Trump’s residence.
Sources have told NBC News that Trump faces about 30 counts of document fraud within the indictment. It got here after the grand jury heard multiple witnesses since January testify a couple of $130,000 payment Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made to Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
The indictment has not been unsealed, so it will not be known whether those counts are the whole thing of the case.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office is prosecuting Trump, has not made any public statement concerning the charges apart from confirming the indictment was filed.
A court document dated March 30, 2023 shows the order authorizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to publicly disclose that former U.S. President Donald Trump was indicted, following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Manhattan District Court
Cohen’s payment to Daniels was designed to maintain her from talking to the media about her claim that she had sex with Trump one time in 2006, months after his wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. He also denies any criminal wrongdoing.
But he reimbursed Cohen with multiple payments, which in total far exceeded the $130,000. The additional amount Trump gave Cohen was at the least partially to cover the income taxes the lawyer would have owed for getting the cash from him.
The reimbursement was recorded as legal expenses in Trump Organization business records.
Under Latest York law, misclassifying the character of business expenses in official records is a misdemeanor. But it could actually be charged as a felony if the misstatement was done to cover up or hide one other crime.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal criminal charges, which included a campaign finance violation that was related to the payment to Daniels. He admitted Trump directed the payment to forestall Daniels from making her claim public, which could have potentially harmed his probabilities of winning the election.
Trump’s campaign for the 2024 presidential election has leveraged the renewed attention to rake in money from the previous president’s supporters. It has raised greater than $5 million since Trump was indicted, NBC News reported, confirming an earlier report by Axios.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures from his motorcade as he leaves his Trump International Golf Club after his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 1, 2023.Â
Ricardo Arduengo | Reuters
As Trump tries to secure the GOP presidential nomination for a 3rd time, his legal risks transcend the hush money case. He faces three other criminal investigations.
One, by a state prosecutor in Atlanta, is concentrated on efforts by him and his allies to get Georgia officials to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden in that state.
The Department of Justice is investigating Trump for his try and reverse Biden’s national election win, by, amongst other things, pressuring his Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to substantiate the Electoral College results during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. That probe is also examining whether Trump committed crimes related to the riot by a mob of his supporters who invaded the Capitol that day.
The DOJ individually is investigating Trump for potential crimes in retaining lots of of presidency records at Mar-a-Lago, a few of them highly classified, after he left the White House. It’s also probing whether he obstructed justice in refusing to return the documents when authorities requested them.
The Washington Post on Sunday reported that “federal investigators have gathered latest and significant evidence” that after Trump’s advisors were sent a subpoena last May demanding the return of documents bearing classified markings, “Trump looked through the contents of a number of the boxes of documents in his home, apparently out of a desire to maintain certain things in his possession.”
Trump has denied committing crimes related to any of the probes, which he argues are motivated by a desire to harm him politically.
