A grand jury in Manhattan has indicted former president Donald Trump following an investigation into a hush-money deal he’d allegedly made with an adult film star back in 2016.
According to people familiar with the matter cited by The New York Times, the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed a sealed felony indictment against Trump. Although the specific charges haven’t been unveiled yet, they are related to a five-year probe spear-headed by Democratic district attorney Alvin Bragg, over a payment Trump made to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential election campaign.
Bragg started bringing evidence before the grand jury shortly before Trump’s 2016 election win, with Daniels claiming the Republican president gave her money in exchange for keeping quiet about a sexual relationship they had back in 2006. During the investigation, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen unveiled the billionaire instructed him to direct payments not only to Daniels but also to former Playboy model Karen McDougal with whom he’d also supposedly had a sexual encounter with. Trump, for his part, denied the allegations, with federal prosecutors ultimately refraining from charging the president and instead slapping Cohen with a prison sentence.
Trump, who is currently making a bid for the 2024 election, would become the first US president to face criminal charges. On March 18, he wrote on social media that he’s anticipating to get arrested on March 21, but the latest indictment allegedly caught the 76 year-old off guard. “Is this a shock today? Hell yes,” a person close to him told CNN.
Meanwhile, Trump released an official statement professing his innocence, instead arguing the Democrats are staging a Witch-Hunt to destroy the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement. “This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” he wrote. “The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable— indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference.”
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