Former President Donald Trump is expected to be arrested this week by the Manhattan District Attorney. If this arrest comes to fruition, Donald Trump would be the first former president to be indicted. He would also be the first presidential candidate to campaign while facing criminal charges.
Trump has been in the hot seat for a while now. After still continuously dealing with the January 6th allegations, Trump is now finding himself in a legal predicament again as prosecutors are trying to build a case against him for his alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Alvin Bragg, who was elected Manhattan District Attorney in 2021, is now fighting to prosecute Donald Trump. Earlier this year, Alvin Bragg set up a grand jury to investigate whether there is enough evidence to put Trump behind bars.
Stormy Daniels made allegations against Trump saying that she was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about their 2006 affair, an act also known as “hush money.” Although Trump still to this day denies the affair, there was money advanced by the Trump Organization paid out to Stormy. It is not illegal to pay someone in exchange for an NDA (nondisclosure agreement); however, since the payment was made right before the 2016 election, people argued that the money could amount to a campaign violation.
Days before the 2016 presidential election, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, supposedly both physically and legally threatened Stormy to stay silent. Stormy says she took the money out of fear for her and her family’s safety. In 2011, shortly after she agreed to do an interview with In Touch magazine that wouldn’t be released until 2018, she claims that an unknown man approached her while she was with her baby daughter in Las Vegas and threatened her to “leave Trump alone.” She also stated that he said “that’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
The reason why this is all happening now is that when Trump was in office, courts and the Department of Justice went back and forth debating whether or not criminal charges could be brought against a sitting president. There was never any resolution or conclusion. Now that Trump is no longer in office, they are able to push for this arrest, just in time for when Trump should be beginning his campaigns for the 2024 election.
Donald Trump has been very public about the possibility of being arrested. He is continuing to deny the allegations, stating his innocence and asking for his supporters to back him up. A few days ago, Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, “With no crime being able to be proven and based on an old and fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors) fairytale, the far and away leading Republican candidate and former President of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take our nation back!”
