By nightfall on Tuesday, the grand ballroom at Mar-a-Lago looked like any Trump rally, down to the 16 crystal chandeliers overhead. Screens at the front told supporters to text TRUMP to 88022 to donate. More than 200 people sipped Trump-branded water and snacked on bagged chips while a campaign playlist blared. Only a few hours earlier, the guest of honor had been fingerprinted in Manhattan.
Donald Trump surrendered at the courthouse around 1:30 p.m. ET, pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and left about two hours later. He is the first former president to answer criminal charges. Judge Juan Merchan presided over the arraignment, which came out of an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
What the charges say
All 34 counts trace back to a $130,000 hush-money payment that lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels was trying to talk about an alleged affair with Trump. In court papers, Cohen appears as Lawyer A and Daniels as Woman 2.
Falsifying records is usually a misdemeanor. Prosecutors treat it as a felony here, saying the falsification hid another crime. The BBC explained their reasoning: hush-money payments are not illegal by themselves, but spending money to help a presidential campaign without disclosing it violates federal campaign finance law, and Cohen was convicted of exactly that. Trump’s defenders call this a legal stretch and say the prosecution is politically motivated.
The records at issue are the checks. In 2017, after Trump became president, he met Cohen in the White House. Over the next 10 months he sent Cohen checks, first from a trust handling his assets and later from his own bank account. They were logged as “legal fees.” Cohen says they were reimbursements. The Statement of Facts puts it flatly: “there was no retainer agreement.”
Bragg says two other payments show Trump knew what he was doing. A doorman who claimed Trump had a child out of wedlock received $30,000, and a second woman who claimed an affair received $150,000. Trump has denied the affair. Those payments came through the National Enquirer and its then-publisher David Pecker, who, according to Bragg, coordinated with Trump to keep damaging information quiet. The indictment notes that Pecker later got an invitation to the inauguration.
“At its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white-collar cases,” Bragg said. “Allegations that someone lied, again and again, to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable.”
Trump and his lawyers respond
Trump posted on his social media site that “there was nothing done illegally!” That night he spoke for roughly 25 minutes at Mar-a-Lago, a shorter and more subdued performance than usual. “I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” he said. “The only crime I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.” He called the indictment “ridiculous” and said “the criminal is the district attorney,” then turned to the other investigations he faces, which he also labeled political.
In the crowd were Kari Lake, Mike Lindell, Roger Stone, and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Ronny Jackson. Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Trump attended with their spouses. Melania Trump did not.
His attorney Joe Tacopina said a motion to dismiss is coming, “on several grounds,” with prosecutorial misconduct and selective prosecution among them. He suggested it would cite video clips of Bragg discussing litigation against Trump before Bragg became district attorney in 2021.
Cohen, expected to be a witness, told CNN the case would rest on documents. “Michael Cohen’s not the defendant, Donald. You are,” he said.
Before leaving the bench, Merchan ruled that Trump will probably need to attend pretrial hearings in person. Defense lawyer Todd Blanche had argued that “all of lower Manhattan was shut down today.” The judge declined to excuse Trump for now: “I expect all other defendants to appear in court, even high-profile defendants.”
Sources
- Trump embraced at Mar-a-Lago after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts
- What are 34 felony charges against Trump, and what do they reveal?
Sources
- Trump arraigned, arrested on 34 felony counts in hush money case…
- What are 34 felony charges against Trump, and what do they reveal?
