Now-indicted former President Donald Trump is traveling from Florida today to New York in anticipation of his arraignment tomorrow. His attorney, Joe Tacopina, told NewsMax that the Secret Service will not allow him to be handcuffed, but the Manhattan criminal court will fingerprint him and take his mugshot. Pundits predict that photo will go viral within minutes of its public posting.
Over the weekend Trump filled his Truth Social account with messages thanking his supporters and accusing “radical left thugs” of weaponizing the Department of Justice to steal elections. He faults Soros-backed New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg with conducting a witch hunt.
On his 2024 campaign website, Trump called the indictment — issued by a Manhattan grand jury last Thursday — the worst example of political persecution and election interference in history.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rallied to Trump’s defense, tweeting on Thursday that he promises that the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg accountable for his abuse of power. It’s an interesting avowal, since we still do not know what the indictment says. For now, it remains under seal.
But we do know that the case involves a $130,000 so-called hush-money payment — which former Trump attorney Michael Cohen says he made to porn star Stormy Daniels — days before the 2016 election. Cohen says Trump directed him to make the payment so Daniels wouldn’t go public about an alleged affair she had with Trump in 2006. The former president denies the affair.
Of course, the payment of hush money is not a crime, but in his book People vs. Donald Trump, former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz says that Trump falsified the payments as “legal expenses,” which under New York law is normally a misdemeanor. It could be elevated to a felony if prosecutors can prove that Trump falsified records with intent to commit or conceal another crime.
That’s the part of the indictment we don’t know about yet. Is Bragg alleging a second crime? We may find out tomorrow, after the charges are read in open court. Leftist Judge Juan Merchan will preside over the arraignment. Trump will enter a plea, a court date will be set, and he’ll be free to leave. He will not have to post bail.
Michael Cohen was the main witness for the grand jury that brought charges. He told CBS Sunday Morning what he expects to come this week: “Mayhem. I expect complete and total mayhem.”
Increasingly throughout the interview his tone became more vindictive, spiteful, and even bloodthirsty. “This is his worst fear,” he practically spat, “being mug-shotted, finger-printed, being referred to as a felon.”
“Trump keeps projecting confidence, but you sense fear,” the reporter countered.
“Oh, yes,” Cohen assured him. “Not fear — he’s petrified.”
Yet Trump wasn’t too scared on Sunday to play golf at his Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Florida. In pictures broadcast at The Daily Mail, he didn’t look all that petrified.
Why should he? His campaign announced Friday that it raised more than $4 million in the first 24 hours after the indictment came down. According to the press release, first-time donors made a full quarter of the donations, and the average contribution was $34.
Also since the indictment was announced, supporters have gathered outside the entrance to Mar-a-Lago, waving flags and cheering him on. Trump has widened his lead among potential Republican candidates for president in 2024. Based on results of a poll his campaign conducted on Friday and Saturday, he leads his closest competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, by 30 points, at 51 percent to 21 percent.
Despite an ongoing feud between the two, DeSantis blasted Alvin Bragg over the Trump indictment in a speech at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference on Saturday.
And now you have this Manhattan district attorney, who — his whole platform when he got elected — was that he was going to downgrade as many felonies as possible to misdemeanors. He was going to keep as many people out of jail — even habitual criminals — as possible. And he was going to go light on all these things as part of “criminal justice reform.”
So that’s his posture. He doesn’t want to charge people with felonies.
So now he turns around, purely for political purposes, and indicts a former president on misdemeanor offenses that they’re straining to try to convert into felonies.
That is when you know that the law has been weaponized for political purposes. That is when you know that the left is using that to target their political opponents.
He also called Soros-backed district attorneys in general a “menace to society” and the rule of law. His comments come at 2:21 in the following video:
Not only is Trump displaying confidence in his behavior and by way of supporters rallying to his defense, but his legal team is also self-assured. Tacopina told Savannah Guthrie of the Today show that there will be no plea deal because there was no crime.
“Do you expect this to go to trial?” she asked him. “Do you see any scenario in which you or the former president would take a plea deal?”
“Zero,” he said, before repeating with emphasis, “zero.”
He explained, “President Trump will not take a plea deal in this case. It’s not going to happen. There’s no crime.”
Trump’s campaign team is taking advantage of the indictment with a powerful ad launched last Thursday. It’s worth a look here:
Meanwhile, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz says that Trump’s indictment is the culmination of six years of the Democrats weaponizing law enforcement to target and persecute their political enemies. He calls this first indictment of a former U.S. president “dangerous” because this is the way dictatorships operate.
Here’s how Donald Trump, Jr. summed up the situation in a tweet:
Not a single person that visited Epstein Island was indicted other than G Maxwell who seems to be serving a 25 year sentence for sex trafficking minors to no one….
But they’ll indict Trump over a campaign finance violation past the statute of limitations that even the feds who spent 7 years trying to jail my father passed on because it’s nonsense?
Let that sink in for a minute!!!
Others were more jovial in their comebacks. In response to news about the indictment, Alabama Republican Representative Barry Moore handed out ham sandwiches on Capitol Hill last Friday.
He packed the sandwiches in zip-lock bags and wrote “Indict this!” on the outside of each. In his tweet announcing the ham handout, he welcomed Trump to the “Indicted for Political Purposes Club.” That’s a clear reference to 2014, when Moore was arrested while he served as a state representative. He faced felony perjury and false statement charges, but was later acquitted completely.
The “ham sandwich” reference comes from a famous quote coined in New York in 1985. Shortly after his appointment as chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Judge Sol Wachtler said that district attorneys can get grand juries to “indict a ham sandwich.”
Here’s what Moore told CNN about his prank:
That was not the only silliness that issued from Capitol Hill last week. Nancy Pelosi is catching flak for her apparent ignorance of legal basics regarding the indictment. She tweeted that Trump has a right to prove his innocence. Of course, one of the foundations of the American legal system is that anyone accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty.
About the indictment, President Joe Biden had even less to say, responding to press queries with an abrupt, “No comment!”
On the other hand, Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling for MAGA Republicans to join her on Tuesday in New York, where she plans to protest what she calls “the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!”
In a series of tweets, she accused Democrats of fomenting civil war by pushing Republicans to react — in her words — so “they can use their weaponized government to lock us all up.” She calls Bragg a Soros-backed DA with a goal of destabilizing America.
Meanwhile, Trump announced Sunday that he plans to deliver his first public remarks from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday at 8:15 p.m. Eastern time. We will not know until tomorrow whether any potential gag orders will prevent him from divulging details of the case.
