Donald Trump arrest: Seven takeaways from the Bragg indictment

Sarah Westwood

April 05, 05:30 AM April 05, 05:31 AM

Donald Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg squared off for the first time Tuesday as details about the unprecedented criminal indictment of a former president finally came to light.

The politically seismic event unfolded in front of crowds and hordes of media, commencing what is likely to become one of the most closely watched criminal proceedings in a generation.

FACT CHECK: DEMOCRATS DISTORT THE RECORD ON GUNS AFTER THE NASHVILLE SHOOTING

Trump and his legal team traveled to New York City for his arraignment on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, before which he was processed into the system.

Here are seven takeaways from the day.

ALLEGED NEW EVIDENCE

Bragg told reporters after the arraignment that his office obtained new evidence to justify bringing the years-old case against Trump.

Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, had worked on the investigation without ever bringing charges. Federal investigators too had examined the circumstances around Trump’s 2016 payments to a woman, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had an affair with him, and decided against pursuing an indictment.

Bragg said he had discovered “additional evidence that was not in the office’s possession prior to my time here,” which began last year.

That included, Bragg said, more witnesses. His allusion to new witnesses seemed to address a top critique of his case: that he has relied heavily on Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as a star witness.

Cohen has previously lied to investigators and has spoken openly about his vendetta against Trump since the two parted ways bitterly during Trump’s presidency. Cohen is considered an unreliable witness.

In a statement of facts document, Bragg also mentioned the existence of audio recordings of conversations between Trump and Cohen that, the DA claimed, bolstered Cohen’s testimony.

However, those tapes have been public knowledge since 2018, when Cohen released at least some of the tapes through his lawyer to media outlets.

It is unclear why, nearly five years later, those tapes could provide support for a case no other law enforcement agency considered worthy of advancing.

“I’m sure that District Attorney Bragg has new facts,” Cyrus Vance Jr., Bragg’s predecessor, said on CNN when pressed on why Bragg may have decided to bring a case that he personally did not.

EXPERTS AREN’T IMPRESSED

Several legal experts panned the structure of Bragg’s argument as a stretch at best.

Containing few surprises, the text of the indictment released Tuesday reflected what public reports had signaled it might: Bragg used a novel hybrid of state and federal laws to bump up a misdemeanor charge, for which the statute of limitations had expired, to a felony.

The lawyers and former prosecutors who populated cable news panels Tuesday generally questioned the strength of Bragg’s claim that Trump violated federal election law.

In a press conference after the arraignment, Bragg said Trump had exceeded federal limits on campaign contributions. Federal investigators have already looked at that possibility, and they decided years ago not to prosecute Trump over it.

Bragg also claimed Trump had violated New York election law, but precisely how was less clear.

Elevating the misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records to the felonies Trump now faces would require Trump to have falsified the records in furtherance of a second crime, and few legal commentators seemed confident that Trump had actually committed any second crime.

In fact, Bragg did not charge him with one; he only referenced the additional alleged illegal activity.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS REMAIN

How exactly Bragg plans to prove that Trump broke election law remains unclear.

Trump has not been charged with any actual violation of election law. But for Bragg’s indictment to work, prosecutors need to prove that he did commit a campaign violation.

Bragg’s office appears to have amassed substantial evidence regarding the paper trail of payments Trump made to Cohen to reimburse him for the money he’d sent to Daniels and to a tabloid that sat on the story of another woman.

The statute of limitations on improperly recording those payments as legal expenses has long passed.

And the evidence that Trump made those payments specifically to affect the 2016 race is thin, at least as represented in the documents made public Tuesday.

The statement of facts document does contain a line that alleges a political motive from Trump rather than a personal one.

“[Trump] instructed Lawyer A,” Bragg’s team wrote, referring to Cohen, “that if they could delay the payment until after the election, they could avoid paying altogether, because at that point it would not matter if the story became public.”

But the “emails and text messages” Bragg’s team goes on to cite as evidence for that claim do not include Trump; instead, those conversations were between Cohen, the tabloid’s editor, and another lawyer. And according to the court document, those conversations refer only to an effort to delay making the payments in question — not to the election.

TRUMP’S BIG DILEMMA

Trump’s legal team has already laid the groundwork to argue that Trump paid off women claiming to have had affairs with him because he wanted to shield his family from embarrassment, not because he wanted to advance his presidential bid.

That defense would conceivably be stronger if he acknowledged that the affairs did occur and that the disclosure of the affairs would have hurt his wife and young son.

But Trump has never publicly admitted to having sexual relationships with Daniels or the other women who came forward during the 2016 race. In fact, he has consistently denied the Daniels affair.

Hush money payments are not illegal. The only reason Bragg found cause to allege the payments were illegal was to connect them to Trump’s presidential ambitions at the time.

Trump is, in some ways, caught between an incentive to own up to the Daniels affair in order to strengthen his defense against the crux of Bragg’s case and to continue denying the affair to protect his family.

TRUMP DITCHED THE PRESHOW

While news reports had suggested Trump was eager to address the public both before and after his court appearance, Trump instead walked solemnly past reporters and said nothing.

Despite the presiding judge declining to impose a gag order, Trump stayed silent leaving the hearing as well.

Trump’s public demeanor — his stone-faced look and slow gait — seemingly contradicted claims from his aides and allies that he was unfazed by the indictment and even excited by the political opportunity it presents.

Trump returned immediately to Palm Beach, Florida, where he was slated to address supporters Tuesday evening.

BIGGEST MOMENT OF 2024 CAMPAIGN

Trump technically launched his 2024 presidential bid six months ago, but Tuesday was far and away the most attention his campaign has received to date.

Cameras captured his every move for the 24 hours leading up to his court appearance, from aerial footage of his plane preparing to leave Palm Beach on Monday to a live broadcast of the entire 4-mile drive from Trump Tower to the courthouse.

Political commentators dissected everything from his facial expression as he walked into the arraignment to the volume of his voice in the courtroom.

And the state of his primary campaign came under a blinding spotlight during round-the-clock coverage of the event, with few signs of that slowing down after Tuesday.

Whether all this is good for Trump’s chances of securing the GOP nomination remains unclear.

His indictment has so far united the Republican Party around him, at least for the moment; even his top potential rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), decried the criminal charges as unfair.

But as details of the case emerge and public opinion about the indictment solidifies, voters could begin to see the situation as more evidence that Trump comes with too much baggage to succeed as a Republican standard-bearer.

PEOPLE SEE THIS AS POLITICAL

Most people believe the criminal case against Trump is politically motivated — and most people also don’t care.

CNN polling data from this week showed that 76% of people believe politics played at least some role in the decision by Bragg to bring criminal charges against Trump.

The same poll also suggested that a majority of people — 60% of the country and an overwhelming share of Democrats — approve of the indictment.

That lines up neatly with Trump’s overall approval numbers; a poll published shortly after he launched his 2024 presidential campaign found that 59% of people disapproved of him.

All this means most of the people who don’t like Trump welcome the fact that he’s facing criminal charges, even as they recognize the fact that the charges are motivated by partisanship.

Donald Trump indicted: Poll shows DeSantis losing significant 2024 support since charges

Emily Jacobs

April 01, 09:16 PM April 01, 09:49 PM

Former President Donald Trump's lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among 2024 Republican presidential primary voters has tripled since news of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's indictment, a new poll found.

The Yahoo-YouGov poll, conducted from Thursday to Friday and released Saturday, showed Trump ahead of DeSantis 57% to 31%, respectively. The 26 point difference is three times the eight percent lead Trump held in the same poll when it was conducted two weeks ago. In that survey, the former president was beating the Florida governor 47% to 39%. DeSantis was ahead of Trump 45% to 41% when the poll was conducted in February.

DONALD TRUMP INDICTED: CAN HE TURN MANHATTAN GRAND JURY VOTE INTO 2024 GOLD?

When the two GOP frontrunners are pitted against a wider, 10 candidate field of declared and potential challengers, Trump maintains steady support while DeSantis's numbers plunge. The former president holds 52% support in the larger primary field, up from 44% in the last poll. DeSantis, meanwhile, dropped from 28% to 21%.

No other declared or potential candidate included in the survey, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, polled in the double digits. Haley had 5% support and Pence had 3%, a far cry from Trump's 54% and DeSantis's 21%.

Of the Republicans and GOP-leaning independents polled, 54% chose Trump as their preferred nominee in 2024, while only a third said they would prefer a different candidate. That is a three point jump from the 51% who said they preferred the former president in the last survey. Results were more split when respondents who weren't aligned with Republicans were included, however.

The surge in support appears to indicate what many political observers had predicted after Trump revealed the looming indictment earlier this month: that the former president being charged would boost his 2024 candidacy, especially with Republicans.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has a complicated relationship with the former president, called the indictment an "enormous political gift" for Trump.

Speaking during an episode of his Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast on Friday, the Texas senator lamented Bragg's indictment as "devastating to the rule of law [and] to the confidence the American people will have in our justice system" before remarking that if he were a Democrat, he "might well report Alvin Bragg to the Federal Election Commission for making the single greatest in kind contribution to a presidential campaign in history."

"Look, Trump put out almost two weeks ago that he was about to get arrested, and he said he was gonna get arrested the next day," he said. "And Bragg delayed and delayed and delayed. A lot of national Democrats were freaking out and were pressuring Bragg, ‘Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. This will help Trump.’"

Bragg, a Democrat who has refused to prosecute a number of offenses since taking office last January, indicted the former president Thursday on charges related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The indictment marks the first time a former U.S. president has been criminally charged.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, testified before Congress in 2019 that he paid Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 during the 2016 campaign to prevent her from going public about an affair she claimed to have with Trump in 2005. Cohen, who pleaded guilty and served time over the alleged payment, told lawmakers Trump reimbursed him in monthly installments.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to fight the charges.

Kellyanne Conway says delay in Trump indictment decision shows charges are 'weak'

Jack Birle

March 26, 05:36 PM March 26, 05:36 PM

Kellyanne Conway says the reason former President Donald Trump has yet to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury is because prosecutors know the case is "weak."

Conway, who served as an advisor to Trump during his presidency, says the charges being considered by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg are only in consideration so he can say he was "first" to indict Trump.

FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY SAYS TRUMP PROBE NOT UNPRECEDENTED

“I think it’s enough for them to wave the flag and say, ‘we were the first,’ because the left cares about optics and being the first, ‘we’re the first to preside over the indictment of a sitting former president,'” Conway said while speaking on Fox Business Network's WSJ at Large.

“But I think the brush back and the delay here is because they know it’s weak and they tried to build a case based on the testimony of Michael Cohen and to a lesser extent Stormy Daniels," Conway added.

Conway, who said she has discussed the potential indictment with Trump and testified before the Manhattan grand jury, also said that she sees the case only helping Trump's electoral chances.

“If you take the long view, it’d be hard to see how this doesn’t benefit President Trump because it plays right into what he has always said, which is ‘they’re out to get me,’ which means they’re out to get you: the voter,” Conway said.

Prosecutors in Manhattan have been investigating to see if Trump had falsified business records by listing a $130,000 reimbursement of his then-lawyer Cohen for paying off Daniels to stay silent as a legal expense in 2016 when he was running for president.

An indictment of Trump by the New York City grand jury could come as soon as this week after it was widely speculated that he would be charged last week.

McCarthy breaks with Trump on call for protests over possible arrest

Emily Jacobs

March 19, 09:54 PM March 19, 09:54 PM

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) broke with former President Donald Trump on Sunday regarding his call for protests in response to his possible arrest this week.

McCarthy was asked during a press conference at the House Republican retreat in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday about the former president's call for supporters to "protest, take our nation back" while predicting an indictment from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office.

JOHN KIRBY 'NOT AWARE' OF VIOLENT PROTESTS AHEAD OF TRUMP'S POSSIBLE INDICTMENT

“I don’t think people should protest this, no," McCarthy said. "And I think President Trump, if you talk to him, he doesn’t believe that, either."

“Nobody should harm one another," he later added.

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that the Manhattan DA's office would arrest him this week on charges related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. The statement followed a growing number of reports about Bragg's plans to indict him on charges related to the Stormy Daniels matter.

Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, testified before Congress in 2019 that he paid Daniels, an adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000 during the 2016 campaign to prevent her from going public about an affair she claimed to have with Trump in 2005. Cohen, who pleaded guilty and served time over the alleged payment, told lawmakers Trump reimbursed him in monthly installments.

It is unclear what charges Bragg's office is mulling against Trump. Prosecutors in the Cohen case alleged that the Trump Organization "falsely accounted" for the monthly payments as legal expenses. Falsifying business records in New York technically amounts to a misdemeanor. To elevate it to a low-level felony, prosecutors in the Trump case must show that the conduct was committed in connection with another crime and the former president's "intent to defraud."

Trump's Truth Social post unleashed on Bragg and urged his supporters to “protest, take our nation back.”

Without mentioning Trump's post by name, Politico reported Saturday evening, Bragg sent an email to employees stating that "we do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York. Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment."