Donald Trump‘s lawyer says he will travel to Manhattan to be arraigned on Tuesday, when he could face as many as 30 charges related to business fraud.
The former president huddled with lawyers and advisers at his Mar-a-Lago home on Thursday evening after news broke that a Manhattan jury had voted to indict him over a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
Trump blasted the indictment and said Democrats would regret persecuting an innocent man when his supporters dumped them out of office.
In the meantime, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it was in touch with Trump’s lawyers to arrange his surrender in New York.
A source told DailyMail.com that the head of Trump’s security detail recently traveled to Manhattan to review arrangements and that the former president would likely be formally arrested next week.
That could be as soon as Tuesday, Susan Necheles, one of his lawyers, told the New York Times.
Although the indictment is sealed for now, CNN reported that it contained more than 30 criminal charges.
A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict former president Donald Trump over hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels
‘The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to “Get Trump,” but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election Interference,’ Trump said in an emailed statement.
‘Never before in our nation’s history has this been done.’
The indictment marks the end of a five-year investigation into cash paid to the adult movie star in 2016, allegedly to buy her silence about their affair.
And it takes the country into uncharted political and legal territory. Although being charged with a crime would not disqualify him from running for office, it does mean a leading 2024 candidate faces the humiliation of arrest.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said talks had begun to bring Trump to New York.
‘This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,’ they said.
Earlier, Trump played nine holes of golf at his Florida club as usual on Thursday morning. But the 76-year-old did not stay for lunch even though his usual table was reserved.
A source close to his Mar-a-Lago home said the Trump team was ready with statements and social media messaging as soon as the indictment dropped.
‘We had a plan in place and the plan was executed,’ he said. ‘Getting surrogates out, getting content out.’
Within minutes his sons Don Jr and Eric were livecasting or tweeting, fundraising appeals followed and an emailed statement arrived from Trump himself in inboxes soon after.
Trump is leading most polls of Republican voters for the party nomination. But the Manhattan case is just one of the legal obstacles he faces, including probes into efforts to overthrow the result of the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Many leading legal scholars believe the hush money case may be the weakest of the lot.
Trump and his allies had even floated the idea that the case was being dropped after a series of delays to grand jury hearings.
As a result, the indictment landed out of the blue on Thursday evening.
Meanwhile it also emerged on Thursday New York prosecutors were looking to charge Trump over a $150,000 payment made to another former Playboy model.
Bragg’s team has questioned grand jury witnesses about cash given to Karen McDougal, who was Playboy magazine ‘Playmate of the Year’ in 1998.
Eric Trump told DailyMail.com: ‘This is the opportunistic targeting of a political opponent in a campaign year.
‘They are ruthlessly attacking my father because he dared challenge the political elite. This is Exhibit A to the decline of American Law.’
The former president has always denied having an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
But the case dogged him through his time in office after triggering a federal investigation.
In 2017 Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal charges, including tax evasion, fraud and campaign finance violations, and he told a court in Manhattan that Trump had directed him to make the payments.
But the investigation disappeared from the headlines as other legal cases focused on Trump’s family business and his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, riot hog the spotlight. But it never went away.
Although the Justice Department decided not to charge Trump and the Federal Election Commission was deadlocked over taking action over claims that the payment amounted to an undeclared campaign contribution, the Manhattan DA was still looking at the case.
And it took on fresh momentum early in 2023 when Cohen met with investigators from the Manhattan district attorney’s office and it emerged that a grand jury was hearing evidence.
Such hearings are conducted in secret. But one theory was that it was probing Trump for falsifying business records in connection with the payment, by allegedly misreporting a campaign donation as a legal fees.
Daily Mail (UK)