The Manhattan grand jury weighing an indictment against former President Donald Trump has reportedly scheduled testimony from another witness on Wednesday.
According to a report from Fox News, citing a law enforcement official familiar with the case, authorities now don't expect a potential arraignment for Trump, if he is indicted, until next week.
The officer also noted the logistical issues of closing down streets and putting lights up with generators, extra barriers, and extra police as well as public safety concerns as reasons for delaying the indictment.
“If the former president does come up to Manhattan, there will be a major police presence and the area will get shut down. Trump has called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment, ” Fox News reports.
On Monday, workers were seen erecting metal barricades outside of the Manhattan Criminal Court.
The report noted that the Manhattan grand jury has been meeting in secret for weeks to hear evidence.
On Saturday, Trump remarked on Truth Social that he expected authorities to indict him on Tuesday.
“ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK,” Trump posted to his social media platform. “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”
The unprecedented indictment hanging over Trump's head stems from a $130,000 hush money payment he allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution. The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.
The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and Trump's company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. A report by NBC News said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.
Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump's “‘intent to defraud' included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”
Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story for the purpose of benefiting his presidential campaign.
Republican officials have spoken out in support of the former president-turned-2024 candidate and against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for his politically motivated prosecution.
On Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Committee Republicans sent a letter to DA Alvin Bragg's office demanding that he turn over documents related to his Trump investigation and testify before Congress.
On Tuesday, Bragg's offered a harsh response to the letter:
“We will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law,” a spokesperson for Bragg's office told Fox News Digital.
“In every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work,” the spokesperson added.
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Well every things there and ready……get the Biden gang
Another witness — Bu** sh**, looking for someone with a name they can buy to say just what they want to hear. This is so much a disgrace to this country, our now corrupt judicial system, our bought and paid for agencies like the doj and fbi and to the American way of life — not to mention the disgustingly waste of taxpayers’ money for their fantasy world inventions. All the wrong people are being judged and supposedly indicted. The people of this country need to wake up and smell the danger of our next generation of young people will be living under communism with absolute morons like biden, obama,pelosi,cheney running the show.
This article (and others I have seen) says, “The retainer agreement did not exist”. It would be an extraordinary case in which that can be proven. The most definitive they could be (except in extraordinary cases with extraordinary effort) is that *no proof of a retainer agreement has been produced*. Even a verbal agreement, if it can be verified, is a valid agreement.