New York: Former US President Donald Trump has arrived in New York where he is going to surrender to unmatched criminal charges, taking the US into potentially volatile territory as the former President seeks to regain the presidency.
Trump, who is the first American president ever to be criminally indicted, hopes to use his appearance before the court to rouse support for his 2024 White House bid.
Trump’s motorcade was seen departing his Mar-a-Lago home at 12:20 pm to head to the city where he made his name. New York police force was on high alert ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival, with security cordons and Secret Service agents outside the Trump Tower and the court where he will appear before a judge on Tuesday afternoon.
As part of his arraignment, Donald Trump will undergo the standard booking procedure of being photographed and fingerprinted, likely resulting in one of the most famous mugshots of the modern era.
On CNN Sunday, Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said there is no roadmap for Trump’s surrender to court authorities. Whether the famously unpredictable Donald Trump will follow the given script or find a way to upend events remains to be seen.
A grand jury indicted Donald Trump last week in the case brought by an elected Democrat, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The particular charges will be revealed during Tuesday’s hearing, but they revolve around the investigation of $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels just days before Donald Trump’s election win.
Trump’s former lawyer and friend, Michael Cohen, who has since turned against his former boss, says he arranged the payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for keeping silent regarding an affair she had with Trump in 2006.
Criminal probes against Donald Trump
The Daniels case is only one of the various investigations threatening Donald Trump. An independent prosecutor is investigating any potential role Donald Trump played on the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol and his keeping and handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
In the swing state of Georgia, Donald Trump is under probe for pressuring officials to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, including a taped telephone call in which Trump asked the secretary of state to look for enough votes to reverse the result.
While some Republicans have rallied around Donald Trump, including his rival in the political party’s presidential primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, some have bristled at the prospect of a twice-impeached US president facing multiple legal investigations seeking the party’s nomination.
A CNN poll on Monday found that 94% of Democrats surveyed accepted the grand jury’s decision to indict Donald Trump, while 79 percent of Republicans disapproved. Some 62 percent of independents were in favor of the indictment.
According to his lawyer, despite denouncing the legal proceedings as a “political persecution” and “witch hunt,” Trump is girding for battle.
The outcome of the case remains uncertain, but the charges against Trump take the United States into the uncharted and potentially volatile territory.
