By Aaron Miller-
Donald Trump is set to fly from his estate in Florida to New York ahead of his scheduled court hearing on Tuesday over his role in hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
The former US president is expected to arrive on Monday evening and will spend the night in Trump Tower. The former president will be escorted by members of the US Secret Service and will reportedly arrive at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on his personal plane.
Police erected barricades outside the building over the weekend, with demonstrations expected both there and at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan.
Mr Trump became the first former president in US history to face criminal charges after a grand jury voted to indict him. Multiple reports suggest that Mr Trump is facing more than 30 charges.
The 76-year-old politician is expected to be arraigned, fingerprinted and photographed at a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday as he becomes the first former US president to face criminal charges. He is expected to subsequently be released on bail and return to his Florida home on Tusday evening.
On Sunday, Mr Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said in televised interviews that he would pore over the indictment when he gets it and then devise the next legal steps.
Judge Merchan also presided over a criminal trial last year in the same courtroom in which Trump’s real estate company was convicted of tax fraud, though the former president himself was not charged. Trump criticised Judge Merchan on Friday, saying he hates him and treated the Trump Organisation “viciously”. The former president is also fixed on having a mug shot taken, Trump has asked whether his team could print it on T-shirts that could serve as a rallying motif for his supporters – an idea that his advisers have been particularly enthusiastic about.
According to Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, the former president is “extremely angry” and the Trump family is “rattled” by the indictment.
In an interview with the paper’s This Morning newsletter, Haberman said: “While Trump is not said to be throwing things, he is extremely angry and his family is, not surprisingly, rattled.
“messy because his team has had a lot of infighting, and there’s finger-pointing about why they were so caught off guard”.
The former president is planning a prime-time speech from Mar-a-Lago just hours after his arraignment. He is expected to restate angry statements posted to Truth Social over the last three days, railing about “corrupt” charges, claiming he can’t get a fair trial in New York, and lashing out at District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the case judge, Judge Juan Merchan. The possibility of a gag order being imposed on Mr Trump regarding the case has been raised.
It hss also emerged that his 2024 campaign has raked in more than $4m in donations since the indictment and new polling shows him widening his lead over chief GOP primary rival Ron DeSantis.
However, polls also show the plurality of Americans agree with the charges and even more want him held accountable for the Capitol riot and 2020 election interference. The Trump camp is most prepared on the political front, but on the legal front, things are “messy because his team has had a lot of infighting, and there’s finger-pointing about why they were so caught off guard”
Media reports have said that Mr Trump will be facing more than 30 charges related to business fraud over a $130,000 (£105,000) pay-out to Stormy Daniels in 2016 that was made in an attempt to buy her silence over an alleged affair.
Sources familiar with the case have told US media that the former president is being charged with falsifying business records in the first degree – a felony under US law.
Details of the charges, including what they are and how many, remain under seal. Mr Tacopina has said that he himself has not yet seen the charges.
Mr Trump has been reportedly meeting with his advisors and legal team to plan his defence ahead of his flight to New York on Monday.
A rally for Mr Trump with Republican House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been scheduled for noon on Tuesday in New York, calling for supporters to join in “peaceful protest” against the indictment.
Later on Tuesday, Mr Trump is scheduled to return to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after his hearing, where he has said he will make an address at 20:15 EST.
Around a dozen of his supporters had gathered outside Mr Trump’s Florida home over the weekend, waving “Trump 2024” flags and banners at passing motorists, many of whom honked their horns in support – but also disagreement.
They were outnumbered at the site by journalists, photographers and camera crews waiting for Mr Trump’s departure to New York.
“We’re just here to let him know we have his back,” one woman told the BBC. “Just like he’s always had ours… he’ll go up to New York and beat this very soon.”
Mr Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, has accused the establishment of a witch hunt against him.
Rejected by its voters, ostracized by its protesters and now rebuked by its jurors, the people of New York have one more thing to splash Trump’s name on: Indictment No. 71543-23.
The former president has vowed to people close to him that he wants to go on the offensive and – in a private moment over the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that demonstrates his gathering resolve – remarked using more colourful language that it was time to politically “rough ’em up”.
Trump had already signalled that he would go after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, weeks before the grand jury handed up an indictment against him on Thursday, saying in pugilistic posts on Truth Social that the prosecution was purely political and accusing Bragg of being a psychopath.
The latest charged rhetoric reflects Trump’s determination to double down on those attacks as he returns to his time-tested playbook of brawling with prosecutors, especially when faced with legal trouble that he knows he cannot avoid, people close to him said.
With the indictment under seal until Trump’s scheduled arraignment on Tuesday, the exact charges remained unclear on Sunday, though they are expected to include the falsification of business records and additional charges that elevate what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony.
Trump was initially caught off-guard by the indictment and spent the following 24 hours absorbing the news that was relayed to him by several of his top advisers. Later, at one point, Trump repeated to himself almost incredulously that prosecutors had actually charged him.
The shock had dissipated by the weekend, when Trump’s tone changed and he told his team that he wanted to attack the case and fight the prosecutors.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump said Merchan had “railroaded” Allen Weisselberg, the former chief executive of the Trump Organization, who on Sunday was in the middle of serving a 100-day sentence in the Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilt
Trump has also since pivoted his focus to seeing how he can benefit politically from the indictment, the sources said, and he was encouraged that it had boosted his poll numbers over potential rivals for the Republican nomination who found themselves forced to come to his defense against Bragg, a Democrat.