(New York) Donald Trump will probably not be charged or “arrested” this week in New York as he announced on Saturday. The prosecutor investigating the former president of the United States accused him Thursday of having “created a false expectation” media on a case with unforeseeable political consequences.
The 76-year-old Republican billionaire, who dreams of “reclaiming” the White House in November 2024, must answer, before the justice of the State of New York and his attorney for the jurisdiction of Manhattan Alvin Bragg, of a case of payment of 130,000 dollars, just before his 2016 presidential victory, to porn actress Stormy Daniels, with whom he would have had an affair.
Donald Trump succeeded, Saturday, March 18 in the morning, a coup by assuring on his social network Truth Social that he would be “arrested” Tuesday as part of a criminal charge by the prosecutor Bragg.
But nothing happened.
This did not prevent New York – its police, its justice and the press – from being suspended all week on the hypothetical appearance, indictment and even brief “arrest” of the 45e American president.
Which would be unprecedented in the United States.
Thunderbolt
Prosecutor Bragg, an elected Democrat at the head of the Manhattan prosecution since 2022 and who inherited the Stormy Daniels case, had remained silent since Saturday.
But in a letter dated Thursday and addressed to three Republican parliamentarians, the prosecutor’s office complains of the media and political thunderbolt caused by Mr. Trump on Saturday.
In this letter consulted by AFP, the Manhattan prosecution also responds to these three elected members of the House of Representatives who had summoned, in a letter of March 20 revealed by the press in Washington, the prosecutor Bragg to testify before a commission of the Congress.
They accuse the magistrate ranked on the left of carrying out “politically motivated prosecutions”.
“Your letter,” retorts Mr Bragg’s general secretary, Leslie Dubeck, “is an unprecedented interference in an ongoing local investigation”.
And it “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day, and after his lawyers apparently pressed you to intervene.”
“No fact offers a legitimate basis for a congressional investigation,” she sweeps.
Indictment dismissed
According to several media, including the Washington Post, the New York justice has again postponed, until next week, the possible criminal indictment of Donald Trump.
This decision must be voted on by a grand jury, a panel of citizens with broad investigative powers that works with the prosecutor, who must follow it and formally indict.
This grand jury could still meet Thursday afternoon, the last day of the judicial week, but without deciding on the Trump / Stormy Daniels case, according to local press.
Even charged, Mr. Trump would not be “arrested” immediately anyway.
It would take several days for him to appear in Manhattan, in what would undoubtedly be an indescribable media and political mess.
All week, authorities in New York have had metal barriers erected in front of the courthouse and Trump Tower in Manhattan. To prevent any risk of clashes in a city with a history of violence, the municipal police (NYPD) have boosted “the presence of police officers in uniform”.
January 6, 2021
Mr. Trump called on his supporters on Saturday to “protest”, recalling what he had done in December 2020 and on January 6, 2021, the day of his supporters’ assault on the Capitol in Washington, to contest a presidential election without proof. stolen,” he said, by Democrat Joe Biden.
But there were only a few dozen protesters this week outside the courthouse and Trump Tower in New York, and outside Donald Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.
On the merits, the Stormy Daniels case is legally complex.
Justice seeks to determine whether Mr. Trump was guilty of misrepresentation, an offense, or breach of the laws on campaign financing, a criminal offense, by having paid money to this actress of pornographic films, her real name Stephanie Clifford, just before the November 2016 presidential election, which the Republican had won.
What purpose ? For her to conceal a supposed extramarital relationship ten years earlier, according to the prosecution.
The key man in the case is called Michael Cohen: he is the former lawyer and now enemy of Mr. Trump, and had paid Stormy Daniels. He testified in front of the grand jury and the actress also cooperated with justice.
