The scene at the Manhattan courthouse and Trump Tower ahead of a court appearance is depicted in pictures

The Donald J. Trump sex scandal revisited: Will he return to New York on Monday morning? A CNN interview with Joe Tacopina

Monday was not a good day for Trump as he continued to deal with his legal issues. He was returning to his old place of residency in Manhattan under threat to turn himself in on Tuesday over criminal charges against an ex-president. Trump has been a force of nature who has always been impossible to control, so it makes sense that he would have rebelled against the constraints. But now he will be subject to the dictates of a judge and the rules and conventions of the legal system, which will be far harder for him to disrupt and divert than the institutions of political accountability he has subverted.

Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York and is on his way to surrender himself to authorities.

A source familiar with Trump’s plans says he will leave Florida at noon and land in New York at 3 p.m. The source said that the former president will leave New York on Tuesday after he is sentenced and headed back to Florida.

In the run-up to Tuesday’s appearance, Trump’s legal team gave a preview of a robust defense that will unfold against a backdrop of a furious political campaign. The leading loyalists are attempting to use the power of the GOP House majority to interfere with Bragg’s prosecution. In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said the ex-president’s team would loudly and proudly declare he is not guilty and signaled an attempt to try to prevent the case ever from reaching trial.

All of the cases were denied by Trump. But once more, America’s political and legal systems, under a near-constant stress test since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to launch his campaign in 2015, will be put under enormous pressure that is likely to only deepen the country’s internal estrangement.

Some legal experts have questioned the seriousness of the case against an ex-president who’s already running again, without seeing the still-sealed indictment.

Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday accused Donald J. Trump of covering up a sex scandal during the presidential campaign and now face an embarrassing trial if found guilty.

“Had he not been running for office right now, for the office of the presidency – which, by the way, the polls have shown since this has been announced, his numbers have gone up significantly – had he not been running for presidency, he would not have been indicted,” Tacopina said. Bragg has made no public comment on the case since the indictment came down last Thursday.

The Mueller investigation of a case of Cohen paying a woman to silence an affair with Trump: The case of Asa Hutchinson

The case against Trump is based on a guilty plea by Cohen who admitted to paying women to stay silent about their relationships with Trump. He said that in 2016, he paid $130,000 to silence Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump.

Intense security is already in place in New York given the political sensitivities of the case and after Trump warned of potential “death and destruction” ahead of being charged, especially given his past incitement before the Capitol insurrection. Few of Trump’s supporters have responded to his calls for protests.

The indictment returned last week by a grand jury against Trump is also expected to be unsealed Tuesday, providing the public – and Trump’s legal team – with the first details about the specific charges he will face. The investigation stemmed from a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But former Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his presidential campaign on Sunday, doubled down on his call for Trump to drop out of the race now that he is facing criminal charges.

In his statement on Thursday, Trump said he will respond to this incident in the same way as when he was threatening his business and political career in the past, with fury and by wanting to use his political power to stir up partisan anger.

He said the Witch-Hunt will backfire on Joe Biden. The people of the United States know what the Radical Left Democrats are doing. Everyone can see it. Our Party will defeat Joe Biden and then, after victory of Alvin Bragg, we will throw out the remaining Democrats in office so we can make America great again.

This Tuesday is likely to be the start of a new, dramatic and divisive chapter in Trump’s political career and another extreme test for America as a result of his approach.

The dramatic end to the monthslong drama centered on whether or not Mr. Trump would be indicted and then on predictions about how he would respond. He has alternately fretted about and blustered over the prospect of an arrest, while his aides have leveraged the indictment to ramp up fund-raising and push primary rivals into an awkward dance between criticizing prosecutors and backing Mr. Trump.

The former president has remained “surprisingly calm,” spending the weekend in Florida playing golf and mulling how to use it to boost his campaign, CNN reported Sunday night, after an indictment that caught him and his advisers “off guard.”

He may be forced to appear in court at times. The grueling pre-trial process, with its numerous legal argument deadlines and heaps of evidence the defense must sift through, will impose severe demands on a legal team that has often struggled to act coherently. Ahead of his appearance Tuesday, for instance, Trump made a late shuffle of his legal team, bringing in another attorney, Todd Blanche, to serve as his lead counsel – a move some saw as sidelining another attorney, Joe Tacopina. The ex-president’s camp pushed back on this interpretation, however.

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian toldNPR’s Morning Edition that it was the first time that the former president of the U.S. will be having a mugshot. Brinkley said that there will be a rocky spring with Trump and a lot of other ongoing criminal cases.

The district attorney’s office is in the same building as the courthouse and there are back hallways and elevators to get to it. He will walk through a public hallway to the courtroom where he will be arraigned.

“Obviously, this is different. This has never happened before. I have never had the Secret Service involved in an appearance at 100 Centre Street by Trump, his lawyer said on CNN on Sunday. “All the Tuesday stuff is still very much up in the air, other than the fact that we will very loudly and proudly say not guilty.”

News outlets will not be able to broadcast the arraignment live, a judge said Monday night, rejecting a request from several media organizations, including CNN. Five photographers are able to take pictures of Trump before the hearing begins.

The news organizations sent a letter to the court asking for limited audio-visual coverage in order to avoid disruptions to the court operations.

Merchan, an acting New York Supreme Court justice, has sentenced Trump’s close confidant Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and overseen former adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.

Attorneys who have appeared before him tell CNN that he does not tolerate delays or disruptions and is known to maintain control of the courtroom even though his cases draw a lot of attention.

During an interview with CNN on Friday, Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore said that he was not easy on him when he tried a case against him but that he will likely be fair.

“I’ve tried a case in front of him before. He could be tough. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be something that’s going to change his ability to evaluate the facts and the law in this case,” Parlatore said.

Tacopina told CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday that the former president will plead not guilty. His team “will look at every potential issue that we will be able to challenge, and we will challenge,” Tacopina said.

The criminal charges — a historic first against a sitting or former president — are the culmination of an investigation into hush-money payments that Trump paid prior to the 2016 election to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.

The case isn’t currently being looked at to be moved to a different city. He told George Stephanopoulos that there had been no discussion of that. “It’s way too premature to start worrying about venue changes until we really see the indictment and grapple with the legal issues.”

Trump’s political advisers over the weekend were actively discussing how to best campaign off the indictment they have portrayed as a political hoax and witch hunt, according to sources close to Trump.

His team spent the last few days presenting the former President with polls showing him with a lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a match up. And his team says it has raised more than $5 million dollars since he was indicted Thursday.

Bragg was attacked before and after the indictment by many of Trump’s allies, critics and likely opponents.

Hutchinson’s Letter to the Presidency Revisited: “America wasn’t supposed to be that way”, he told ABC News

“The office is more important than any individual person. Hutchinson said in an interview with ABC News that he didn’t think it was a good use of the presidency’s time. “He needs to be able to concentrate on his due process.”

Bill urged to ignore the courthouse circus and focus on the merits of the case. Is it new evidence? Do you think there are new witnesses? What does the indictment tell us that we didn’t already know about Trump’s payment to Stormy Daniels? That is provably illegal.

Trump has denied any criminal wrongdoing and is expected to plead not guilty. He wrote on Truth Social that he would be going to the Courthouse on Tuesday. “America was not supposed to be this way!”

The Challenges of Defending Donald Trump in a High-Dimensional Court: The Case for a Far-Off Appellant

An arraignment is a criminal defendant’s first court appearance. For a normal defendant, that’s usually when one would appear for photographs, fingerprints and arrest paperwork, a process that typically takes several hours behind closed doors.

Then, defendants go before a judge to hear the charges against them. Most of the time, Defendants can enter a not guilty plea at this point in the criminal process.

Even so, his status as a former president is expected to pose some unusual logistical challenges. He has a large legal team and a Secret Service detail. The protests are expected. There will be coverage by the media. There will be more than one thing that will happen at a busy state court office.

There’s a lot of external factors that don’t happen in most of the cases that we have, according to Cyrus Vance, the former Manhattan District Attorney. “It will be a real challenge for the [police department], the court officers, investigators in our office to ensure that things function safely and smoothly.”

Kim Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, says he is entitled to the same due process as everyone else.

She tells All Things Considered there are lots of hurdles to go through before charges are filed against him, and that it is way, way down the line.

“There are procedural protections in place that make sure that the far-off question is seen to be fair by everyone,” Wehle says.

Key to a trial will be the strength of the evidence presented by prosecutors, legal experts said. Another factor will be the jury, said Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.

“This will be decided by 12 people, not by the public at large,” Gerhardt told Weekend Edition. “Mr. Trump’s lawyers will be there every step of the way, and they’ll have to make sure that the jury is fairly chosen and that the jury does its job.”

The jury pool in Manhattan is against Donald Trump so I would probably choose the prosecution’s side if it meant I could save my life, he said.

It would take a year to get a trial for a similar case. He expects that Trump’s strategy will be to delay that process as much as possible.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167756756/trump-traveling-new-york-arraignment-whats-next-trial

The Extraordinary Moment of Trump Coverage: A Preliminary Report from a White House Addressed by R.C.D. Tolman

He says that they won’t make him an offer that he would accept. “And I think more than anything he probably wants that public stage to play the victim, to have an audience.”

The extraordinary moment will present newsrooms with a slew of coverage conundrums and test how well outlets have adapted to reporting on Trump since he left office in disgrace and largely vanished from the public view.

The first version was published in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/03/media/trump-coverage-reliable-sources/index.html

Covering the lie with a truth sandwich: Donald Trump indicted as an ex-president in the 2020s and his alleged misconduct in Georgia

He needs to be covered with a truth sandwich. Before he tells a lie, tell the truth. if you can don’t repeat the lies. You have to repeat the lie in order to be believed. The campaign’s framing isn’t appropriate. Don’t let him be your assignment editor. Trump is a candidate and also likely a defendant, treat him like every other candidate and defendant. The benefit of doubt is not given to him.

Editors should stop looking over their shoulders worrying about what oxpeckers might say, the number of hours they spend on the booking, the number of column inches they burn on the prosecution, and their own journalistic instincts and training. Follow the story. Inform your readers and viewers.”

► Alyssa Farah: “Be careful not to be spun by Trump world. Trump is currently spiraling over this indictment but he and his team will do everything in their power to try to harness the narrative and frame it as a win for him. Take a step back, contextualize this moment for history: being indicted is never a good thing and it hurts him in a general election regardless of what he says.”

And there are increasing signs that this new reality – which will come with hefty financial commitments in legal fees and locks on Trump’s calendar – could be multiplied at a time when he’s already facing the intense demands of another White House bid.

The documents case may not be the end of the matter. Smith is looking into Trump’s conduct before the US Capitol insurrection. Then there’s also a possible prosecution in Georgia led by a district attorney probing the ex-president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election result in the swing state.

The developments were said to represent a serious turn in the case for the ex-president. We were aware of the investigatory steps and hadn’t seen alleged results until today. “I think these are highly consequential.”

One criminal prosecution is onerous enough. Trump hasn’t been charged in any of the other cases, but a multi-front defense in multiple cases would represent an extraordinary storm. It would undermine the ex-president’s ability to dictate his political schedule, and control his fate. When he was under scrutiny in the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, or during his two impeachments, Trump exploited his huge popularity with Republican voters to discredit accusations against him. He pressured most GOP senators, who knew they would pay with their careers if they voted to convict him in an impeachment trial.

The situation is similar to that of the 2020 election because the will of voters prevailed, even though Trump tried to have votes thrown out and results changed.

Indictment of the Ex-Trump Tower Doorman Against a Child That Trump Had Proportedly Fathered Out of Wedlock

In a late-night ruling, Merchan turned down the request for broadcast cameras. Five still photographers will be allowed to take pictures of Trump and the courtroom before the hearing begins, however.

Donald Trump knows how to thrive in a media circus. He fears being a part of a media circus that he can’t control.

Mr. Trump was very angry as he entered the courtroom. Boris Epshteyn was with him, as was Todd W. Blanche, Susan R. Necheles, and Joseph Tacopina. Mr. Trump left to fly back to Florida immediately after the hearing after declining to speak before or after it.

The former president was upset with some of the charges but was determined to prevail, according to Mr. Blanche. “He’s frustrated. He is upset. But I will tell you what. He is motivated by something. It’s not going to slow him down,” he said.

The charges also allege that in or about October or November 2015, the owner of the National Inquirer tabloid learned that a former Trump Tower doorman was trying to sell information regarding a child that Trump had allegedly fathered out of wedlock. At the owner’s direction, his publishing company negotiated and signed an agreement to pay the former doorman $30,000 to acquire exclusive rights to the story. This payment was wrongly characterized in the company’s records. It bought the information from the former doorman without fully investigating his claims — and later concluded that it was not true — but the owner directed that the deal take place because of his agreement with Trump and his lawyer.

The Playboy playmate of the year in 1998 was paid by the tabloid to keep quiet about an affair with Donald Trump. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the National Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”

“Each check was processed by the Trump Organization, and each check was disguised as a payment for legal services rendered in a given month of 2017 pursuant to a retainer agreement,” prosecutors wrote in the statement of facts accompanying the indictment.

It is unsurprising given the circus like political era Mr. Trump ushered in that his first indictment came from lies.

Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers had been under the belief that he would be charged with both misdemeanors and felonies, and they were jolted by reports that he would instead be facing dozens of felony counts.

Mr. Trump has been free from criminal charges for almost 50 years. He was first investigated in New York in the late 1970s, an episode that set the tone for how he dealt with prosecutors for decades.

Federal prosecutors are looking into Mr. Trump’s actions after his electoral defeat. And a Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.

Mr. Trump’s allies have been heavily focused on the idea that he could face a gag order, something his advisers are also aware is a possibility after his broadsides against Mr. Bragg, who pushed for indictment, and Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case. There is no indication so far that the judge plans to do so.

An Attorney General Reveals Campaign Influence on a Black-Hole Candidate: Marjorie Taylor Greene and the 2016 Election

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who is closely aligned with Mr. Trump, held a rally at the park across from the courthouse. She denounced the Democrats through a megaphone but her words were drowned out by protesters and counterprotesters. After speaking for about five minutes, she was ushered out of the park by the police.

A $150,000 payment was made to a woman who was said to have had an intimate relationship with Trump. Karen McDougal, who was a model in Playboy, has talked about that experience in interviews and is not named in the charges.

Trump and his allies have questioned Cohen’s credibility. But at his news conference, DA Bragg said his investigators obtained texts, emails, contemporaneous phone records and testimony from multiple witnesses — information that would emerge at trial.

The statement of facts only hints at the approach Bragg is taking, but the prosecutor laid out his legal theory in more detail during the news conference.

Bragg said that the business records were altered to hide criminal activity connected to the 2016 campaign. He referenced a New York state law that makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.

Other people involved in the scheme have admitted to engaging in illegal conduct and that Trump is accused of orchestrating an “unlawful” scheme to influence the election.

Specifically, the statement of facts references the guilty plea by ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in the federal campaign finance case that was prosecuted in 2018 and the admissions of AMI – the publisher of National Inquirer – in the non-prosecution agreement it reached in the federal investigation.

The documents describe the campaign influence scheme and reveal how the plan to silence women accusing Trump of extramarital affairs came about.

According to the charging documents, the editor-in-chief and the CEO of the National Enquirer approached then-Trump lawye Cohen shortly after the “Access Hollywood” tape became public in October 2016, and told Cohen that adult-film actress Stormy Daniels was claiming she had an affair with Trump.

The statement of facts states that in February of 2017, the Defendants and Lawyer A met at the White House to confirm their repayment arrangement.

For years, a lot of these particular facts have been made public. Cohen publicly revealed one of the $35,000 checks while testifying to Congress in 2019 in an effort to corroborate his story that Trump played a role in coordinating and orchestrating the payment to Daniels.

In late 2018, American Media, Inc. also entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Southern District of New York’s US attorney’s office relating to paying Karen McDougal, another woman who allegedly had an affair with Trump – which he denies – for her story about Trump, the statement of facts says.

In addition, prosecutors may be able to prove that the payoffs were aimed at protecting Trump’s electoral chances, as opposed to how the payments were recorded in business records.