PITTSBURGH, Pa. (PTTP)– America is standing witness to something that has never happened in its nearly 250 year history.
News broke over St. Patrick Day’s weekend that former President Donald Trump was going to be arrested for his involvement in a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels right before the 2016 election. Trump, through his lawyer Michael Cohen, paid Daniels because she was threatening to go public with information about an affair between them in 2006 in an effort to derail his campaign for the presidency.
Trump is not being indicted for making the payments to Daniels, but for how the payments were documented in the books of the Trump Organization. According to Cohen, who pled guilty to similar charges in 2018, testified that he paid the sum of hush money and Trump paid him back under the pretense of “legal fees”. This is classified as a crime under falsifying business records.
If Trump were to be indicted, an arrest is expected to follow. However, it might take several days for Trump to appear at a courthouse, as he most likely will not be at his New York residence. His lawyers and prosecutors are trying to negotiate his surrender to make it less of a spectacle, but he is expected to be processed as an average citizen: including fingerprinting, handcuffing and potentially a “perp walk” into the courthouse by several Secret Service members.
Following the news of his arrest, security measures at the New York City courthouse were heightened, as Trump, on his social media platform Truth Social, called for his fervent supporters to protest. Despite a small show of people outside the courthouse on Tuesday, when Trump claimed he was going to be arrested, NYPD officers and other security officials are monitoring social media and installing barricades to ensure protests do not become unruly.
Despite the charges, this is not a slam-dunk case. The case was previously investigated by the former district attorney’s office, led by Democrat Cy Vance, but it was ultimately held stagnant because it was considered to be a huge gamble. The grand jury for the case was supposed to convene Wednesday, but it was called off with no indication of when they would reconvene. The earliest they would reconvene is next week.