Former President Donald Trump will surrender to law enforcement officials if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment he allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, according to Trump’s attorney.

The remarks from attorney Joseph Tacopina come in response to a report from NBC News that said federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies were analyzing security assessments and making plans to prepare for the possibility that Trump will be indicted as early as next week.

Fox News reported that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office asked for a meeting with law enforcement officials to “discuss logistics for some time next week, which would mean that they are anticipating an indictment next week.”

Tacopina told the New York Daily News that if Trump is indicted, “there won’t be a standoff at Mar-a-Lago with Secret Service and the Manhattan DA’s office.”

Tacopina later told CNBC that they “will follow normal procedures if it gets to that point.”

The New York Times reported earlier this week that it would be highly unlikely at this point for prosecutors to not seek an indictment given the amount of relevant witnesses questioned in front of the grand jury and the offer they made to Trump to come in and testify in front of the jury.

The case involves an alleged payment that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen admits he made to Daniels during the presidential race to keep quiet about an alleged 2006 tryst between Trump and Daniels. Cohen pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.

Although non-disclosure agreements are legal, the potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed Cohen. The payment was listed as a legal expense and the 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. The report 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.

Name one president that hasn't screwed around....

Many observers expect New York authorities to arrest former President Donald Trump this week. It's hard to imagine this being anything but a boon for Trump, who is running for president again.

Decisions about whether to bring criminal charges against a politician or authority figure certainly shouldn't hinge on whether it will help or hurt the person's political fortunes. But it's tough to see why Trump opponents would actually be cheering for this arrest.

As it stands, the Republican establishment and electorate both seem much more enamored with the thought of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as their party's future than with the continuance of a Trump-helmed GOP. But Trump's arrest could boost his claims of unfair persecution in a way that Trump supporters find sympathetic, compelling conservative officials to rally around him and delegitimizing future attempts to prosecute Trump for more serious offenses. And for what? The expected charges in this case—falsifying business records—will hardly lead to major punishment even if Trump is convicted.

And setting all politics aside, the charges are pretty weak.

The expected indictment stems from money that Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The money was intended to keep her quiet about a past Daniels-Trump tryst.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to paying Daniels $130,000 at Trump's direction "for the principal purpose of influencing the election." This counted as an excessive contribution to the Trump presidential campaign. (Individual donors are permitted to give only relatively small amounts to a candidate each election cycle. There was a $2,700 limit in 2016, though its since been raised to $3,300.) Meanwhile, Trump admitted to reimbursing Cohen for this payment, using his own (not campaign) money. It was "a simple private transaction," said Trump, seeming to believe this made everything legal.

And indeed, experts have been divided over whether this payment counted as a criminal act, a campaign finance law violation, or nothing. As Reason's Jacob Sullum points out, "there is nothing inherently illegal about that payment." The theory underlying the case against Cohen was that he paid the money to influence the 2016 presidential election—but the money could just as well have been "to avoiding personal embarrassment for Trump or [to spare] Melania Trump's feelings."

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigated the matter as a possible violation of election law, but eventually decided not to pursue it.

Now, around seven years after Cohen paid Daniels, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pursuing criminal charges against Trump. This time, the case rests on whether Trump falsified business records and with what intent.

In court, Cohen said that Trump's company had "falsely accounted" for the reimbursement payments he received, calling them legal expenses and citing a retainer agreement that didn't exist. Cohen has also claimed that Trump knew about this deception.

"In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor," notes The New York Times. "To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg's prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump's 'intent to defraud' included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime. In this case, that second crime could be a violation of New York State election law."

But proving that Trump intentionally violated campaign finance rules is hard, considering Trump's statements that he thought the personal payment was just a private transaction. The lack of evidence that Trump "knowingly and willingly" flouted election law seems to be why a federal case was never pursued. (It's also unclear how New York election law would cover a violation of federal limits on campaign contributions.)

"Even if Mr. Trump is indicted, convicting him or sending him to prison will be challenging," comments the Times. "For one thing, Mr. Trump's lawyers are sure to attack Mr. Cohen's credibility by citing his criminal record. The case against the former president also likely hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws. Combining the falsifying business records charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president."

The idea that New York prosecutors will somehow succeed in showing what the FEC and other federal authorities couldn't is suspect. They're also running up against statute-of-limitations constraints. "In New York, misdemeanors have to be prosecuted within two years, and Class E felonies have to be prosecuted within five years," writes Sullum, who points out that the "legal expenses" payments to Cohen were made sometime in 2017. "Prosecutors would have to cite records that were falsified more recently, which maybe they can do, but to what end?"

Considering all of this, prosecuting Trump now would basically be an exercise in chest-thumping to score some political points, not a pure effort to see that justice is served. Which means that Trump's claims of a politics-based persecution could, in this instance, be right.

The left was practically salivating at the thought of Trump getting indicted and arrested, but just as quickly as the hype started, it seems to be fizzling out. It looks like their dreams of seeing him in handcuffs are slipping away faster than a greased pig at a rodeo. At this point, I dare say that it looks like it won’t happen at all.

That’s right. No indictment. No handcuffs. No perp walk. The radical left has been yearning for this moment for years. And for a few days, it seemed like that wish might finally come true. However, it now appears to be just another chapter in a never-ending fantasy that always falls short of becoming a reality.

The first hint that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump was going sour was when former Michael Cohen legal advisor Robert Costello appeared as a surprise witness on Monday. Trump touted Costello’s testimony as conclusive and irrefutable evidence of his innocence. And he may not have been exaggerating.

It sure does look like Costello’s testimony, along with the evidence he presented — a five-year-old letter from Michael Cohen’s attorney affirming that Cohen made the payment to Stormy Daniels alone and that Trump had no role in reimbursing him — had a significant impact on Bragg’s case against Trump. This impact was so substantial that the Manhattan grand jury did not assemble on Wednesday, and while they did meet on Thursday, they did not hear the case involving Trump, postponing the alleged indictment to at least next week.

However, it remains doubtful that the indictment will occur at all. In fact, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday that there is speculation that the prosecutors have been unsuccessful in persuading the jury to accept that Trump is guilty of a crime.

“They are having trouble convincing the jury to swallow the case. It’s a weak case and has caused divisions in the DA’s office,” a source allegedly told the outlet. “Other reports suggested the DA’s office could be contemplating a change of strategy. The grand jury meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but postponements are not unusual and jurors are warned to expect last-minute changes. Either way, it leaves the nation with a cliffhanger.”

Legal experts from both sides of the political aisle have highlighted the frailty of Bragg’s case. Bragg was most certainly aware of this fact, too. Perhaps he didn’t care because he was too eager to become a hero to the radical left and advance his career. Or maybe his Trump Derangement Syndrome blinded him to the fact that he had a weak case. Ironically, the only person who stands to benefit from this situation is Trump.

The anticipation of an imminent indictment in New York has led to a surge in donations for Trump. According to reports, his campaign raked in $1.5 million in the three days after Trump announced on Truth Social that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday.

Anything can happen, of course, but I’m confident that Bragg’s case blew up in his face and the case that the left thought would be Trump’s downfall only made him stronger.

Fox News has just reported the grand jury has indicted Donald Trump.

Onward and upward,
airforce

On Thursday night New York City DA Alvin Bragg announced his office was indicting President Trump.

The indictment is currently under seal, however, according to a leak to CNN, President Trump was hit with 34 counts related to business fraud.

“Former President Donald Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, according to two sources familiar with the case.” CNN reported.

President Trump is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday at 2:15 PM ET in New York City on the garbage charges.

On Friday Harmeet Dhillon joined Tucker Carlson to discuss the criminal leak on the New York City DA’s garbage indictment of President Donald Trump.

Harmeet suggested the Soros-funded DA will attempt to silence President Trump with a gag order. That way the communist left can prevent President Trump from campaigning.

The New York indictment of former President Donald Trump, which was unsealed on Tuesday, includes 34 felony counts. All of them are related to a 2016 payment aimed at keeping porn star Stormy Daniels from telling the press about her alleged 2006 affair with Trump.

Although there was nothing inherently criminal about that hush payment, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, has transformed it into nearly three dozen felonies through a tricky two-step process. First, Bragg portrays the payment as a violation of federal election law. Second, he claims Trump repeatedly falsified business records to cover up that uncharged and unproven crime. Yet the underlying conduct, while salacious, still does not seem serious enough to justify the first-ever prosecution of a former U.S. president, especially when the defendant is seeking that office again by running against an incumbent who is a member of the district attorney's party.

Prior to the 2016 presidential election, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her story out of the press, and Trump later reimbursed him with a series of checks. Federal prosecutors viewed the payment to Daniels as an excessive campaign contribution, a characterization that Cohen accepted in a 2018 guilty plea. But although Cohen said he was acting at Trump's behest, the Justice Department never prosecuted Trump, even after he left office. In 2021, an evenly divided Federal Election Commission (FEC) declined to pursue charges against Trump, his business, or his campaign.

The New York indictment nevertheless alleges that Trump "violated election laws" when he instructed Cohen to pay Daniels. That claim is based on the assumption that the payment was aimed at influencing the election rather than avoiding personal embarrassment and/or sparing Melania Trump's feelings. While that inference seems plausible given the payment's proximity to the election, it is not clear that the Justice Department's reading of the law in Cohen's case was correct.

Former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith thought not. "The best interpretation of the law," he wrote after Cohen's guilty plea, "is that it simply is not a campaign expense to pay blackmail for things that happened years before one's candidacy—and thus nothing Cohen (or, in this case, Trump, too) did is a campaign finance crime." At the very least, Smith said, "it is unclear whether paying blackmail to a mistress is 'for the purpose of influencing an election,' and so must be paid with campaign funds, or a 'personal use,' and so prohibited from being paid with campaign funds."

It is also unclear whether Trump, who seemed confused about what federal election law requires, "knowingly and willfully" violated it, as would be required for a criminal conviction. Still, let's assume federal prosecutors could have made that case but for some unknown reason decided not to try. How does Trump's alleged violation of federal election law become a felony under New York law, let alone 34?

The indictment, as expected, is based on a state law that makes it a misdemeanor to falsify business records "with intent to defraud." That offense becomes a Class E felony, punishable by up to four years in prison, when the defendant's "intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."

The indictment says Trump violated that law 34 times by falsely recording Cohen's reimbursement as payment for legal services under a nonexistent retainer agreement. It cites Cohen's invoices, Trump's checks and check stubs, and Trump Organization ledger entries, each of which is listed as a separate charge. And since Trump allegedly falsified those records to conceal "another crime," each of those counts is charged a felony.

Last November, The New York Times reported that prosecutors working for Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., "concluded that the most promising option for an underlying crime was the federal campaign finance violation to which Mr. Cohen had pleaded guilty." But "the prosecutors ultimately concluded that approach was too risky—a judge might find that falsifying business records could only be a felony if it aided or concealed a New York state crime, not a federal one." Yet contrary to speculation that Bragg would allege another violation of state law as the underlying crime, the indictment mentions only the federal offense that was never prosecuted.

That is problematic not only because of the concern noted by the Times. If Trump did not understand federal election law, which Smith argues is hazy on this point, and/or did not anticipate how federal prosecutors would interpret it, he did not "knowingly and willfully" violate it. And if he did not believe he had committed a crime, how could he have falsified business records with the intent of concealing it?

The indictment describes two other cases in which Trump or an ally allegedly tried to cover up politically damaging information. Cohen arranged for the National Enquirer to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about sex with Trump, which it kept under wraps. He said he did that at Trump's direction, and he pleaded guilty to soliciting an illegal corporate campaign contribution. The indictment also mentions a $30,000 "catch and kill" payment from the Enquirer to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have information about a child Trump had fathered out of wedlock. But neither of these incidents figures in the New York charges against Trump, all of which derive from the payment to Daniels.

Trump "repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election," the indictment says. "The Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant's electoral prospects. In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York."

At bottom, however, this case is about a single hush payment that was criminal only if it is construed as a campaign contribution. That interpretation is, at best, debatable, as illustrated by the unsuccessful federal prosecution of former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards in a similar but seemingly stronger case. If the attempt to keep Daniels quiet does not strike you as an offense worthy of 34 felony charges, you are unlikely to change your mind simply because the the Trump Organization kept pieces of paper that mischaracterized the reimbursement for that payment.

...In 1998, President Bill Clinton launched a missile strike against Sudan after US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists. The US government never produced any evidence linking the targets in Sudan to the terrorist attacks. The owners of the El-Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries plant—the largest pharmaceutical factory in East Africa—sued for compensation after Clinton’s attack demolished their facility. Eleven years later, a federal appeals court dismissed the case: “President Clinton, in his capacity as commander in chief, fired missiles at a target of his choosing to pursue a military objective he had determined was in the national interest. Under the Constitution, this decision is immune from judicial review.” Determinations based on secret (often false) information legally absolved presidents of any killings or calamities abroad.

In 1999, former president Clinton attacked Serbia, killing up to fifteen hundred Serb civilians in a seventy-eight-day North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing campaign. Serbia had done nothing to the United States, but defense secretary William Cohen justified the bombing as “a fight for justice over genocide.” After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found. Many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. Clinton’s attack brought on the takeover of Kosovo by a vicious terrorist clique that was condemned by the European Union in 2014 for murdering Serbs and selling their kidneys, livers, and other body parts.

Thirty-one congressmen sued Clinton for violating the War Powers Act by attacking Serbia. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit after deciding that the congressmen did not have legal standing to sue.

Last year, former president George W. Bush gave a speech vehemently condemning the “decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” Bush had blundered in a speech condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He realized his mistake, mentioned Vladimir Putin, then added, “But Iraq, too.” The audience at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas laughed. The humor was lost on the families of four thousand American servicemen and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who perished in the conflict....

...Thomas Jefferson warned in 1798, “In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” One of the best ways to make the Constitution binding is to cease blocking lawsuits against presidents for trampling Americans’ rights or inflicting carnage around the globe. But don’t expect either Republicans or Democrats to embrace that fix any time soon.