NYC braces for possible Trump impeachment this week

NEW YORK — All eyes are on Manhattan this week over the possibility that Donald Trump could be indicted by a grand jury investigating silent money payments to women who alleged sex with the former president.

Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest was imminent and issued an extraordinary appeal to his supporters to demonstrate. Although Trump’s attorney and spokesperson said there was no communication from prosecutors, Trump said in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be detained on Tuesday.

His message seemed designed to anticipate an official announcement from prosecutors and to fuel outrage among his fan base ahead of the widely expected charges. Within hours, his campaign was sending fundraising requests to his supporters, while influential Republicans in Congress and even some outspoken candidates and potential rivals issued statements in his defense.

In a later publication that was more than just urging his seguidores to protest for his legal case, the presidential candidate of 2024 directed to go general in letras mayúsculas a la administración de Biden y plantó la posibilidad de disturbances civiles: “¡¡¡ IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS ANY MORE. THEY KILL OUR NATION WHILE WE SIT AND WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!! “.

All of this was ominously reminiscent of the rhetoric he used shortly before the uprising at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. After hearing from the then-president at a rally in Washington that morning , his supporters marched on the Capitol and tried to stop congressional certification. of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the White House, smashing the building’s doors and windows and leaving officers battered and bloodied.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg is believed to be considering charges in the secret money investigation and recently offered Trump the chance to testify before the grand jury. Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented lawsuit against a former US president.

Law enforcement has begun conducting preliminary security assessments, five senior officials familiar with the discussions said Friday, to discuss potential security plans in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court in 100 Center Street.

Any plan would include perimeter security around the courthouse and several hundred additional officers on site to help manage any potential protests at locations around the city.

Officials stress that the interagency talks and planning are pre-emptive in nature as no charges have been filed. Agencies involved include the NYPD, New York State law enforcement officers, the US Secret Service, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, authorities said.

An interagency security meeting is expected to take place on Monday ahead of a possible indictment in the coming days.

Our sister channel BNC News he contacted all of those agencies for comment, and all of them declined to say anything.

In an internal email after Trump’s remarks, Bragg said law enforcement would ensure the 1,600 people who work in his office remain safe and that “any specific or credible threat” would make the subject of an investigation.

“We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York City,” he wrote, adding, “In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to enforce the law in a fair and equitable manner and to speak publicly only when appropriate.

No deadline has been publicly announced for the secret grand jury’s work on the case. At least one additional witness is expected to testify, further indicating that no vote has yet been taken to indict, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke out on condition of anonymity.

That didn’t stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say ‘illegal leaks’ from Bragg’s office say ‘REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY NEXT WEEK “.

A Trump attorney, Susan Necheles, said Trump’s message was “based on media reports,” and a spokeswoman said there was “no notification” from Bragg’s office, although that the source of Trump’s Tuesday reference was unclear. The district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Trump’s aides and legal team are bracing for the possibility of impeachment. If this happened, you would only be arrested if you refused to surrender. Trump’s attorneys previously said he would follow normal procedure, which means he would likely agree to go to a New York Police Department station or directly to Bragg’s office.

It’s unclear whether Trump’s supporters would heed his call to protest or if he would retain the same soft power he had as president. Trump’s messages on Social truth they generally receive far less attention than they once did on Twitter, but they retain a deeply loyal base. The aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots, in which hundreds of Trump supporters were arrested and prosecuted in federal court, may also have dampened supporters’ passion for confrontation.

Impeachment of the 76-year-old Trump would be an extraordinary breakthrough after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings.

Even as Trump continues his latest White House campaign — his first rally is scheduled for Waco, Texas, later this month — and he shook hands and took selfies with fans during a public appearance on Saturday. night at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma — no doubt an indictment would be a distraction and stoke naysayers and critics weary of the legal scandals that have long engulfed him.

In addition to the secret money investigation in New York, Trump faces separate criminal investigations in Atlanta and Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

A Justice Department special counsel also presented evidence before a grand jury investigating Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate. It’s unclear when these investigations will end or if they could lead to criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, underscoring the current severity — and wide geographic reach — of the legal challenges facing the former president faces.

Trump’s message on Saturday echoes one he issued last summer when he broke the news in Social truth that the FBI was searching his home in Florida as part of an investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents.

News of the search sparked a flurry of contributions to Trump’s political operation, and on Saturday Trump sent a series of fundraising emails to his supporters, including one that read, “I’m not the least bit worried.” .

Following its release, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, denounced any plans to impeach Trump as an “outrageous abuse of power by a radical district attorney” who he said was seeking a revenge policy. Representative Elise Stefanik, the third House Republican, released a statement with a similar sentiment.

The grand jury heard from witnesses, including former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who claims he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them over sex they said they had with Trump a decade earlier. early.

Trump denies the encounters happened, says he did nothing wrong and described the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the 2024 Republican campaign. Trump also called Bragg, who is black, of being “racist” and accused the prosecutor of letting crime in the city spiral out of control as he focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the country.

Bragg’s office apparently looked into whether state laws were violated regarding payments or how Cohen was compensated by Trump’s company for his work in keeping the women’s allegations quiet.

Porn actress Stormy Daniels and at least two former Trump advisers, former political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokeswoman Hope Hicks, are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.

Cohen said that at Trump’s direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payments were to buy his silence on Trump, who was in the middle of his first presidential campaign.

Cohen and federal prosecutors said Trump’s company paid him $420,000 to reimburse the $130,000 payment to Daniels and to cover bonuses and other alleged expenses. The company has classified these payments internally as legal fees. The $150,000 payment to McDougal was made by the editor of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid, which prevented his story from getting out.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the Enquirer’s parent company in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to charges against Cohen in 2018. Prosecutors said the payments to Daniels and McDougal were inadmissible gifts and were not registered for Trump’s campaign effort. .

Cohen pleaded guilty, served time in prison, and was disbarred. Federal prosecutors have never charged Trump with any crime.