Ex-president appeared for historic arraingment in New York on 4 April – and that looks like being only the beginning of his legal troubles, with several other criminal and civil investigations underway
Donald Trump became the first president in American history to be charged with a crime on Tuesday 4 April 2023 when he appeared before a judge at Manhattan Criminal Court accused of falsifying business records.
The arraignment came in response to a grand jury indictment announced by New York County district attorney Alvin Bragg over a hush money payment Mr Trump is accused of making to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to stay silent about a sexual encounter the pair are alleged to have had a decade earlier.
The former commander-in-chief, who was also the first US president to be impeached twice in his chaotic one-term reign in the White House, denies the affair with Ms Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) and any wrongdoing and has, predictably, insisted the episode is just another “witch hunt” concocted by his numerous political enemies to discredit him in the eyes of the public and thwart a political comeback.
Prior to the arraignment itself, Mr. Trump was busy using the indictment to whip up his base by insisting he was the innocent victim of a justice system with a deep-rooted liberal bias being “weaponised” against him and to raise campaign donations in support of his 2024 presidential run off the back of that spurious claim.
On Monday beforehand, he jetted into New York’s La Guardia Airport in his personal Boeing 757 and stayed overnight at his Trump Tower complex in Manhattan, spending the evening unwisely venting his spleen on Truth Social, his own social media platform, suggesting angrily that District Attorney Bragg should “indict himself” after leaking details of the arraignment “illegally”
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Flanked by police when he finally set out for the courthouse – to be greeted by competing rallies gathered outside to deplore his treatment or call for his imprisonment – Mr Trump was not handcuffed, photographed for a mugshot or placed in a jail as he appeared briefly before Judge Juan Merchan, the spectacle failing to live up to the AI-generated preview images that went viral in advance of the big day.
He was represented in the case by a new lead counsel, former federal prosecutor and white-collar criminal defence attorney Todd Blanche, a lawyer who has previously represented his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and the ex-Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman, among many others, and it was he who did most of the talking before the Trump entourage departed.
Documents released by Mr Bragg’s office immediately after the arraignment revealed that Mr Trump was being accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal the alleged hush money payments, including $130,000 to Ms Daniels, from his attorney Michael Cohen, who was then reimbursed.
Back at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, that evening, Mr Trump delivered a prime-time televised address in which he lashed out at both Mr Bragg and Judge Merchan.
“The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information for which he should be prosecuted or, at a minimum, he should resign,” he said to loud applause.
He also targeted Mr. Bragg’s wife and the “Trump hating-judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter work for Kamala Harris”, all of which came despite Judge Merchan having specifically warned him to stop making threats that might inflame tensions or incite violence.
But the big question many will want to be answered after all of that is whether Mr. Trump could ultimately face prison time if he is found guilty of an offence.
Danya Perry, a former deputy attorney general for the state of New York, told newsmen in advance that Mr. Trump would be released on recognisance – a term for an agreement a defendant makes with a court to observe certain conditions, like returning when summoned, for instance.
New York abolished the need for bail in most cases involving misdemeanours and non-violent felonies, as was the case in this instance, in 2019.
As to the outcome for Mr Trump longer term, the charge of falsifying business records in the first degree is regarded as a low-level felony but does carry a typical sentence of up to four years in prison, so it is theoretically possible.
That said, a conviction would represent a first offence for a non-violent crime, making the prospect of jail less likely.
The defendant’s age, 76, might also provide grounds for a compassionate sentence.
Former Brooklyn prosecutor Arthur Aidala told Insider: “I can’t say for absolute 100 percent certainty there can’t be jail because on the books, he can go to jail… [But] I do not see a scenario where Donald Trump spends one minute in jail.”
The case is expected to be a drawn-out affair and may not be resolved before the American public goes to the polls for the next presidential election in November 2024, so, without a resolution one way or the other, it need not necessarily prohibit Mr Trump from continuing his latest quest to secure the Republican nomination.
Interestingly, even if the former president were to be charged, there is actually nothing in the US Constitution that disqualifies a candidate from running with a criminal record, although he and his party may nevertheless be forced to conclude that the support for him is no longer there if he is seen to be tarnished by the scandal, as almost any other politician around the world would be.
Whatever the outcome of the hush money case, it is only the beginning of Mr Trump’s legal problems, with several other active criminal and civil cases concerning him currently being investigated.
First up, E Jean Carroll – the writer and former advice columnist for Elle magazine who has accused Mr Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, which he denies – will appear as the plaintiff in a pair of civil lawsuits against him that will be presented in a New York City federal courtroom beginning on Monday 24 April, when a jury will be chosen under the supervision of US district judge Lewis Kaplan.
Ms Carroll is suing Mr Trump for defamation after he accused her of lying to boost sales of a forthcoming book when she first came forward with her accusation in 2019 and is also bringing a lawsuit against him over the alleged rape itself under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which was signed into law by state governor Kathy Hochul last year.
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Other legal cases facing the former president include a fraud lawsuit brought by New York attorney general Letitia James alleging that his Trump Organization knowingly overestimated the value of its real estate assets by billions of dollars in order to obtain more favourable loans from banks, a Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation into the removal of classified documents from the White House following the completion of his term in office and a grand jury probe into his attempt to influence vote counting in the crucial swing state of Georgia in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
It also remains to be seen whether the four criminal charges recommended by the congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot of 6 January 2021 will be taken up by the DoJ after the panel concluded in its 845-page report published in December that Mr Trump and his allies had conceived a “multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.
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