Donald Trump will be arrested Tuesday and informed that he has been charged with as many as 34 felony counts involving alleged falsification of business records, a source briefed on the procedures for the arraignment has said, according to Yahoo News.
As reported by the site’s chief investigative correspondent, Michael Isikoff, a New York City Police arrest report summarizing the charges will then be prepared and entered into the court system, and the former president will then be brought into a courtroom for a formal arraignment. None of the charges are expected to be misdemeanors, the report said.
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Nevertheless, the source told Yahoo, Trump will not be cuffed, put in a cell, or even subject to a mug shot, though these are said to be typical procedures in many white-collar cases.
Isikoff wrote that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which has been consulting with the Secret Service and New York City court officials, concluded there was no need to subject Trump to handcuffs or the mug shot process.
Up to this point, some had speculated that the mug shot would become so iconic, and so emblematic of the “witch hunt” against Trump, that it might actually become a boon to Trump’s campaign to recapture the presidency in 2024.
“President Trump and his supporters know the mug shot sums up the witch hunt against Mr. Trump and is emblematic of everything that is wrong with the banana republic that [President Joe] Biden’s America has become,” said Toni Holt Kramer, a longtime Trump friend and founder of Trumpettes USA, according to The Daily Mail. “President Trump knows his mug shot will become the most famous mug shot ever in the history of the world.
“It’s something that will become symbolic of the left’s attack on Trump, and any attempt to use it to humiliate him will backfire spectacularly. Everyone is going to want it. Even his detractors.”
Cuffs are usually applied because a defendant is deemed a flight risk or threat to court or DA staff – none of which is thought to be applicable in the case of the former president under the watchful eye of Secret Service agents.
As Yahoo wrote, falsification of business records can be prosecuted in New York state as a misdemeanor. But Bragg’s office bumped up all the charges to Class E felonies — at the lowest end of the felony spectrum. The purported rationale: that the conduct in question was aimed at hiding the commission of some other crime.
A Class E felony conviction can mean up to four years imprisonment where falsifying business records is concerned. But Trump would also likely be viewed as a first offender if convicted at all.
The evidence for the crime that upped Trump’s case to felony-level won’t be clarified until the indictment is unsealed, the story said.
After Yahoo wrote its story, Trump responded with a post on Truth Social.
“Wow! District Attorney Bragg just illegally LEAKED the various points, and complete information, on the pathetic Indictment against me,” Trump wrote. “I know the reporter and so, unfortunately, does he. This means that he MUST BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED. Now, if he wants to really clean up his reputation, he will do the honorable thing and, as District Attorney, INDICT HIMSELF. He will go down in Judicial history, and his Trump Hating wife will be, I am sure, very proud of him!”