Former President Trump indicted by NY grand jury

International

oi-Prakash KL

A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict former US President Donald Trump for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, The Washington Post reported citing his lawyers.

It makes Trump the first person in the history of the US to serve as commander-in-chief and then be charged with a crime. This came weeks after speculation about whether and when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg might take a step.

An indictment is expected to be announced in the coming days. “By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg,” will have asked Trump to surrender and to face arraignment on charges that remain unknown for now, sources told The New York Times.

According to reports in the international media, the indictment was unsealed, which implies that the specific charges or charges are not publicly known yet. The grand jury had been hearing evidence about hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Bragg and his investigative team were probing whether Trump falsified business records related to the payments in a manner that could make a campaign finance violation, The Washington Post report said.

Former US President Donald Trump was at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and a private club on Thursday when his lawyers said he had been indicted. How or when Trump could be brought to New York to respond to the charges was not clear. Security will be a concern considering that Trump has a significant Secret Service detail as a former president, the report stated.

Trump’s Reaction

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has termed the indictment against him a “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history” and said the “witch-hunt will backfire massively” on current President Joe Biden.

“This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history. From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, and even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the radical left Democrats — the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this country — have been engaged in a witch-hunt to destroy the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement.

“You remember it just like I do: Russia, Russia, Russia; the Mueller Hoax; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; Impeachment Hoax 1; Impeachment Hoax 2; the illegal and unconstitutional Mar-a-Lago raid; and now this,” Trump said in a statement.

The former president alleged that the Democrats “lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump’. But now they’ve done the unthinkable — indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election interference”, according to a report in PTI.

Trump called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a disgrace. “Rather than stopping the unprecedented crime wave taking over New York City, he’s doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on. This is how Bragg spends his time!” he said.

He said that he believes “this witch-hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden”. “The American people realize exactly what the radical left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our movement, and our party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these crooked democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump said.

“Never before in our nation’s history has this been done. The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponising our justice system to punish a political opponent, who just so happens to be a President of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for president, has never happened before. Ever,” he said.

Al Mason, a real estate businessman from New York and co-chair of the Trump Victory Indian-American Finance Committee told PTI, “It is 100 per cent political. Trump will emerge even stronger after this witch hunt. Never underestimate him.”

With inputs from agencies