Donald Trump will he be charged this week in New York in a case of purchase in 2016 of the silence of an actress of X movies? After claiming that he was going to be brought to justice, the ex-president assured this weekend that the criminal case would have been dropped.
• Read also: In meeting in Waco, former stronghold of an anti-federal sect, Trump denies any “crime”
• Read also: Trump rally in Waco, former stronghold of an anti-federal sect
Since Mr. Trump wrote on March 18 in all caps on his social network Truth Social that he would be “arrested” and appear in court in New York on March 21 to be charged, but that nothing happened, New York is suspended on this hypothetical indictment.
That would be unprecedented against a former US president.
On Monday, according to reports, a grand jury — a citizens’ panel with broad investigative powers that works with prosecutors — reconvened in Manhattan court to hear from a witness in the case who threatens Mr. Trump. .
If this grand jury, whose confidential hearings are held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, votes for an indictment, the prosecutor must comply and announce it.
In principle, the next meeting will take place on March 29.
Donald Trump, 76-year-old former Republican president (2017-2021) who dreams of “reclaiming” the White House in 2024, must answer before the justice of the State of New York and his attorney for Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, of a $130,000 payout to porn actress and director Stormy Daniels.
Justice seeks to determine if he was guilty of false declarations, an offense, or breach of the laws on electoral financing, a criminal offense, by having paid money to this woman, whose real name Stephanie Clifford, just before his presidential victory in November 2016.
What purpose ? For her to conceal a supposed extramarital relationship ten years earlier, according to the prosecution.
Accused by Donald Trump and Republican parliamentarians of having a “political motive”, prosecutor Bragg, an elected Democrat at the head of the Manhattan prosecution since 2022, replied Thursday by mail that the businessman had “created a false expectation” media on his indictment and denounced an “interference” in the investigation.
At a campaign meeting on Saturday in Texas, Mr. Trump, singled out by the Washington Post and the New York Times for sometimes flirting with incitement to violence, had denied “any crime” and any connection with Stormy Daniels.
In his return plane he had been further according to the political media Axios: “I believe that they have already abandoned the case (…) It is a bogus affair. The kind of phony business they have absolutely nothing on”.
And the 45th President of the United States drove home the point Sunday on Truth Social: “The Manhattan District Attorney’s witch hunt against me is DEAD.”
He still has to explain himself Monday at 9 p.m. in an interview on Fox News, the conservatives’ favorite channel. A first for ages after a marked deterioration in relations between Fox News and Donald Trump since his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.