Former President Donald Trump, who faces multiple election-related investigations, will surrender Tuesday to face criminal charges stemming from 2016 hush money payments. Follow live updates here all day.
8:35 a.m. Spectators, many of them members of the news media, lined up overnight to get a seat inside the courtroom, or even just a glimpse of Trump, who wasn’t expected until Tuesday afternoon.
The building was surrounded by barricades, and people were undergoing layers of security checks.
8:30 a.m. Trump is scheduled to face a judge for his arraignment at 2:15 p.m. EST
8:10 a.m. Last week, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Donald Trump on charges related to hush money payments made in 2016, suddenly making him the first former U.S. president to ever face a criminal charge.
The payments were made to two women who said they had sexual encounters with the former president while he was already married. Trump denies the encounters and cast the investigation as a “witch hunt” trying to sabotage his 2024 presidential election campaign.
Because the indictment is sealed, there’s a lot that still isn’t public. For instance, there hasn’t been a formal announcement over the time frame into the grand jury’s secret work into the case. It’s also not clear why the charges — which come six years after the payoff — would be filed now or how prosecutors intend to get around New York’s statute of limitations, which are two years for misdemeanour offence or five years for felony offences.
Read the timeline from the Star’s Manuela Vega
8 a.m. His caseload has featured charges against former President Donald Trump’s company and some of Trump’s closest associates in business and politics.
Now Judge Juan Manuel Merchan is poised to take the historic hush-money prosecution of Trump himself.
Merchan, a former prosecutor with 16 years on the bench, is expected to preside Tuesday over the unprecedented arraignment of a former U.S. commander in chief. Trump will appear to answer charges arising from a grand jury investigation into payments made during his 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump, who is running for the White House again, says he’s “completely innocent” and has called the case a “political persecution.” He has also seized on Merchan’s involvement.
Who is Juan Merchan, the New York judge handling Donald Trump’s case?
7:52 a.m. Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday on charges related to falsifying business records in a hush-money investigation, the first president ever to be charged with a crime.
Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the investigation, has called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024. Trump’s lawyers have said the former president “did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”
Here’s what to expect on Tuesday
7:45 a.m. America’s rich history is full of meaningful moments put into words.
“One small step for man …” for the first moon landing.
The first Black president, Barack Obama, who described himself as “a skinny kid with a funny name.”
Or the pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and lamented, “My God, what have we done?”
Read the full story from Allan Woods
7:30 a.m. An extraordinary moment in U.S. history is set to soon unfold in a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday: Former President Donald Trump, who faces multiple election-related investigations, will surrender to face criminal charges stemming from 2016 hush money payments.
The booking and arraignment are likely to be relatively brief — though hardly routine — as Trump is fingerprinted, learns the charges against him and pleads, as expected, not guilty.
Trump, who was impeached twice by the U.S. House but was never convicted in the U.S. Senate, will become the first former president to face criminal charges. The nation’s 45th commander in chief will be escorted from Trump Tower to the courthouse by the Secret Service and may have his mug shot taken.
Read the full story from The Associated Press
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