Former US President Donald Trump has called on his supporters to protest over his alleged arrest on Tuesday for a hush money payment to a porn actress. “Leading Republican candidate and former President of the United States of America will be arrested next Tuesday. Protest, take back our nation!” Trump wrote on his online platform Truth Social on Saturday, citing a “leak” at the prosecutor’s office .
The signs of an imminent impeachment against Trump seem to intensify. The investigation, led by prosecutor Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, is aimed at a $130,000 hush money payment that Trump’s then-private attorney Michael Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had sex with Trump years before the election, which Trump denies.
The payment was apparently intended to prevent Clifford from going public, which could have harmed Trump during the election campaign. The cash flows may have violated campaign finance laws.
The payment itself is legal, Columbia University law professor John Coffee told AFP. On the other hand, it is illegal to falsify a company’s commercial documents. The Trump Organization as a company declared the reimbursement of the hush money to Cohen as legal fees – this was a fake, he explained.
If the charges only relate to the payment to Daniels, that could be treated as a misdemeanor, Coffee said. However, if prosecutors can convince the jury that the forgery was done to conceal another crime – concealing a campaign donation – it could be considered a felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.
A grand jury in New York is currently reviewing the evidence presented by prosecutors before deciding whether to press charges against the ex-president. Cohen, now a well-known Trump critic, testified before the grand jury last Monday. On Wednesday, Daniels met with the district attorney’s office. “Stormy has answered questions and has agreed to be available as a witness or for further inquiries if necessary,” her attorney Clark Brewster said afterwards.
Should Trump be indicted, it would be the first time a former US President has been indicted. The 76-year-old Republican announced a new presidential bid last November and wants to retake the White House in the 2024 elections.
In his all-capitalized statement on Truth Social, Trump referred to “illegal leaks from a corrupt and highly political Manhattan attorney’s office.” The investigations against him were based on “an old fairy tale that has been completely refuted (by numerous other prosecutors)”.
A few hours later, Trump followed up again and appealed to his supporters: “Protest, protest, protest.”
His attorney, Susan Necheles, said Trump’s statements were based on media reports and not new steps by prosecutors. “Because this is a political prosecution, the prosecutor’s office has resorted to leaking everything to the press instead of communicating with President Trump’s attorneys as would be the case in a normal case,” Necheles said.
Trump is not only in the sights of investigators in the Stormy Daniels affair. Investigations are underway in southern Georgia into possible illegal interference with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
A US special investigator is also examining Trump’s responsibility for the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the taking of numerous secret documents from the White House to Trump’s private estate Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida after the Republican’s term ended. However, Trump has not been charged in any of these investigations, at least so far.
AFP
Tags: Trump calls supporters protest alleged imminent arrest
