We don’t know exactly how Donald Trump’s historic arraignment in lower Manhattan will go, but here’s the most important thing we should learn Tuesday: what he’s actually charged with. The rest is details.
With this possibly being the most attention the public has ever paid to an arraignment, let’s talk about how some of those details could play out.
Trump arraignment: Follow our live blog beginning at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday for the latest updates and analysis on Trump’s arrest in New York.
The indictment is what’s prompting the arraignment. Voted last week against Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, the indictment is the grand jury’s formal accusation that he committed a crime — more specifically, he faces about 30 counts related to document fraud, NBC News has reported. When an indictment is filed before a defendant is arrested, that generates an arrest warrant, so Trump needs to be processed on that warrant. That doesn’t mean he needs to be “perp walked” into the courthouse or handcuffed or held in a cell — and I don’t presume that he will be.
Fingerprinting, however, is something that I would expect — that’s the way to technically ensure that the authorities have the right person, even though there’s really no question about that in the case of global celebrities. Trump isn’t the first and won’t be the last well-known figure charged with crimes in New York, but the trappings of a former president and current presidential candidate can’t fully be ignored; he has the Secret Service with him after all, and they’re coordinating with local officers. A mug shot is also a typical part of the processing, so we’ll see how this defendant is treated in that regard.
The arraignment itself is supposed to start at 2:15 p.m. ET. The judge overseeing the case is Juan Merchan, who presided over the Trump Organization trial last year that resulted in convictions for the former president’s company. Merchan ruled Monday that there…
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