The impending indictment against former U.S president Donald Trump is gathering momentum as the Manhattan district attorney’s office continues to work on bringing the first ever election law case involving a federal campaign to court.
New York state prosecutors have not yet released any details regarding the details of the indictment.
According to some legal experts however, the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is set to build the case around Trump’s hush-money payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels in 2016 — a payment which Trump’s onetime fixer, Michael D. Cohen gave to the porn star, and which Trump and his company, the Trump Organisation, later reimbursed him for.
Cohen has already revealed that Internal Trump Organisation records falsely classified his reimbursements from Trump as legal expenses, which hid the purpose of the payments.
Cohen has said that Trump knew about these misleading records.
Bragg’s prosecutors need to prove that Trump’s “intent to defraud” involves an intent to commit or conceal a second crime for the indictment on the felony of falsifying business records to succeed.
Prosecutors will need to prove that an election law had been breached by Trump’s claim that the payout was a donation to his campaign, since it silenced Daniels and prevented any possible sex scandal to erupt during the final stages of the campaign.
Cohen is now set to testify against Trump, claiming he directed him to pay off Daniels, later reimbursing Cohen the sum and then covering up the transactions.
If Trump is indicted, he will become the first president in U.S history to face criminal charges after leaving The White House.
Earlier this week, Trump shared a video on his social media platform Truth Social, criticising the “horrible radical left Democrat” and their ongoing investigations.
“Whether it’s the Mar-a-Lago raid, the Unselect Committee hoax, or the perfect Georgia phone call – it was absolutely perfect…they are all sick, and it’s fake news.”
“Our enemies are desperate to stop us because they know that we are the only ones who can stop them and they know it very strongly.”
“And they’re looking at the polls where not me, but we, are up by so much, they can’t even believe it. We won twice, and now we’ve got to win a third time.”
He also attacked Daniels, saying he was a victim of a “Stormy ‘Horse Face’ Daniels extortion plot.”
“They know that we can defeat them, they know that we will defeat them, but they are not coming after me – they are coming after you,” he told his five million followers. “I’m just standing in their way. And I always will stand in their way.”
Over the weekend, Trump claimed that Bragg’s campaign had been financed by liberal billionaire George Soros.
“THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Trump wrote in an all-caps.
“It is the District Attorney of Manhattan who is breaking the law by using the fake and fully discredited testimony … of a convicted liar, felon and jailbird, Michael Cohen, to incredibly persecute, prosecute, and indict a former president, and now leading (by far!) presidential candidate, for a crime that doesn’t exist.”
In yet another post over the weekend, he wrote, “Alvin Bragg should be held accountable for the crime of ‘interference in a presidential election.’”