Davenport, Iowa – March 13: Former President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as he lands at Quad City International Airport in Moline, IL on Monday, March 13, 2023, en route to Iowa.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
A number of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in New York are bracing themselves for the possibility that ex-President Donald Trump will be indicted as early as next week in connection with paying a porn star for hush money. WNBC reported Friday.
Discussions between agencies included potential safety precautions across the state criminal court in Lower Manhattan, where a grand jury heard testimony related to the 2016 payout to Stormy Daniels, according to the report, which quoted five senior officials.
If indicted, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee would become the first former president to be prosecuted.
Many legal observers expect he will be indicted because a grand jury was appointed in the first place and because prosecutors recently offered Trump the opportunity to testify.
Law enforcement agencies involved in security talks about this possibility include the New York City Police Department, the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and officials from the New York State Court, WNBC reported.
The Manhattan Attorney’s Office, which is conducting the criminal investigation against Trump, is also involved in the preparations.
The report of the discussions came two days after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before the grand jury for two days. Daniels also spoke to prosecutors via Zoom.
Cohen has previously admitted paying Daniels $130,000 at Trump’s behest on the eve of the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence on her allegations that she once had sex with Trump years ago.
Trump has denied having sex with Daniels, but his company refunded Cohen’s payout.
In recent days, Trump has lashed out at Cohen, Daniels and prosecutors.
“President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he has done nothing wrong, and even the biggest and most radical left-wing Democrats make that clear,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement Thursday night.
The criminal investigation focuses on the Trump Organization’s classification of the payment to Cohen as legal expenses.
Such an alleged misrepresentation of business expenses is normally considered a misdemeanor under New York law, but may be made a felony if done to cover up an underlying crime.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges in 2018 related to the payment to Daniels. He also pleaded guilty to several other crimes.
He was sentenced to three years in prison but was released two years earlier because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Trump Organization was convicted in December in an unrelated tax fraud case filed by the Manhattan Attorney’s Office.
Trump faces three other criminal investigations in addition to Daniels himself.
A federal special counsel is overseeing the Justice Department’s probe into Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is also investigating Trump for removing hundreds of government documents, many marked confidential, from the White House when he left office. He also demonstrates possible obstruction of justice related to federal officials’ efforts to recover them.
A Georgia prosecutor is separately investigating Trump over his attempt to get state officials to reverse his 2020 election loss to Biden in that state.
A grand jury set up in this case recommended indicting a number of people for a number of crimes. However, the identities of these individuals and the nature of these charges have not been made public.
Source : www.cnbc.com