New York (agencies)
Donald Trump will appear next Tuesday before the Criminal Court in New York, after he was formally charged in the “buying of silence” case, in an unprecedented event for a former US president.
Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg, whose office belongs to the New York State district, formally charged the former president, who aspires to return to the White House in the 2024 elections, in the case known in the media as “buying silence” before the presidential elections in November 2016.
“We expect the indictment to be read on Tuesday,” Trump’s attorney, Susan Nechelis, said.
A spokesman for the Public Prosecutor in Manhattan had previously stated that Trump’s lawyer had been contacted to “coordinate his surrender, in order for him to appear to read the accusation,” after a grand jury upheld his indictment in this criminal case, adding that the indictment was still sealed. .
CNN reported about 30 charges of irregularities aimed at concealing the payment of $130,000 and concealing its entry in accounts in late 2016.
In a statement, the forty-fifth president of the United States denounced “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history,” stressing that he is “totally innocent” and will not withdraw from the presidential election race in 2024, vowing that “this prosecution will backfire on Joe Biden.” .
The billionaire took to his social network, “Truth Social”, to denounce his opponents and wrote, “They are persecuting me in a weak and shameful way because they know that I am on the side of the American people and that I cannot get a fair trial in New York,” the predominantly Democratic city from which he hails. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s most prominent competitor for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, considered the accusation “contrary to American values”, stressing that his state in which the former president resides will not respond to the “extradition request” from New York State.
The Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, also expressed the same support, stressing that “the American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg accountable and his unprecedented abuse of power.” Vice President Mike Pence criticized the grand jury’s decision to indict the Republican president, saying the attorney general targeted “a specific American” and that the indictment was “great harm to the country.”
Trump will have to “turn himself in” to a Manhattan court, where a judge will read the charge sheet to him before he is briefly placed “under arrest”, photographed and fingerprinted, and will announce whether he pleads guilty or confirms his innocence.
In addition, Donald Trump’s defense lawyer, Joe Tacopina, revealed that the former US president will not be restricted when he appears next week in New York to face criminal charges, adding that this was done under the terms of an agreed deal between his lawyers and prosecutors in Manhattan.
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