By Aaron Miller-
Donald Trump is set to appear in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, an extraordinary scene that marks the first time in American history a former US president has faced criminal charges.
Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the leading contender for the 2024 Republican nomination, will enter the lower Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday as a defendant, surrounded by Secret Service agents.
Security has been tight ahead of Trump’s return to New York, where he built his brand as a real estate mogul and launched his bid for the presidency in 2016, riding a golden escalator into the atrium of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Supporters and critics of Donald Trump gathered outside Trump Tower in New York, holding banners with words demonstrating their support or opposition.
Arriving in the city on a private jet emblazoned with his name, the former president planned to spend the night at Trump Tower on Monday, before surrendering to New York authorities on Tuesday for a booking, followed by his arraignment, likely that afternoon.
Barricades have been erected around Trump Tower and the Manhattan criminal court building in downtown ahead of expected demonstrations. Allies of the president have urged supporters to remain “peaceful,” despite a warning from Trump that an indictment against him could result in “potential death and destruction”.
The former president will be arraigned, fingerprinted and possibly photographed. Though defendants charged with felonies are typically handcuffed, that is unlikely to occur.
The specific crimes Trump has been charged with remain under seal, days after a Manhattan grand jury indicted the former president for his role in paying $30,000 hush money to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels. The former president is expected to enter a plea of not guilty.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, made the payment to Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign to keep her from going public about the alleged encounter. He was later reimbursed by Trump, by then the president. The payments to Cohen were recorded by the Trump Organization as legal expenses. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal tax evasion and campaign-finance violation charges.
Following the unprecedented proceedings, Trump plans to return to Mar-A-Lago, his Florida estate where the campaign has scheduled a prime-time news conference at 8.15pm ET.
In social media posts, Trump has cast himself as a “completely innocent person” and denounced the indictment as part of a broader conspiracy designed by Democrats to damage his political prospects. Prosecutors insist the case against Trump has nothing to do with politics.
Since news of the indictment, Trump has escalated his attacks on the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. He has also assailed the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, an acting New York supreme court justice, who, Trump claimed, “hates me”. Merchan presided over a criminal trial last year that resulted in conviction of Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, as well as the criminal fraud case involving Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
The case marks the beginning of the many legal challenges the former U.S president is facing as he ambitiously pursues another run for the White House.
A prosecutor in Georgia is investigating Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat in the state. At the same time, the US Justice Department is investigating Trump’s attempts to cling to power in 2020 which culminated in the deadly insurrection on the US capitol by his supporters as congressmen and women met to certify the election victory of Joe Biden. well as his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
The indictment has appeared to boost his support among Republicans, which had softened since he left office. Recent polling shows Trump widening his lead over the notional Republican field of candidates, with his challengers and potential rivals rallying to his side. The campaign has also touted record fundraising.
A majority of Americans agree with the grand jury’s decision and support the indictment, but what remains to be seen is how matters turn out for this polarising figure who has divided America.
Joe Tacopina says Trump plans to plead “very loudly ‘not guilty’ before the judge”.
Trump’s legal team is preparing to file “a host of motions”, he said, including a motion to dismiss the case citing what Tacopina argued was selective prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct.
There are also speculations that the judge in today’s case could issue a gag order preventing Trump from speaking about his indictment on the campaign trail.