The first-ever indictment of a president — sitting or former — reportedly may be imminent: Former President Donald Trump may soon face indictment and arrest because of his role in a five-year-old scandal: the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg is in the final stages of presenting a case to a grand jury, and according to NBC News, law enforcement officials have been “preparing for the possibility” that Trump will be indicted this week. The grand jury will continue to hear witness testimony Monday. Trump himself wrote on his social network Truth Social that he would “be arrested on Tuesday,” but it was unclear whether he had a rationale for naming that specific day.
Bragg’s case reportedly alleges that the Trump Organization falsely logged the payment to Daniels as legal expenses so it wouldn’t have to be disclosed as money benefiting Trump’s presidential campaign. One specific charge would likely be falsification of business records, a misdemeanor offense in New York. But, per the Times, Bragg’s team has considered arguing that these business records were falsified to cover up another crime — which could mean Trump would be charged with a felony.
You may be thinking: “Stormy Daniels … That’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.” Indeed.
The world first learned of Daniels in 2018, when the Wall Street Journal broke news that Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen had arranged the payment, made shortly before the 2016 election so the adult film actress wouldn’t go public with her claim to have had an affair with Trump. Cohen, already under investigators’ scrutiny, eventually pleaded guilty in August 2018 to violating federal campaign finance laws with that payment and others, in charging documents that famously identified Trump as “Individual-1.”
Cohen claimed he’d made the illegal payment at Trump’s direction, so there was much speculation about whether Trump…
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