A Diary of Yesterday's (First?) Trump Arraignment Day
And a-wAAAAaaaAAAYYY WE GO!
(The following is a gathering of personal FB posts I made throughout the day following the courtroom proceedings of Ex-President Donald Trump, very lightly edited for Substack purposes.)
-No electronic recording devices are allowed in the courtroom, though there will be a photo session and five reporters to document the proceedings, which may be very fast if the full set of indictments are not read (which is quite likely). The full set of particulars will then be subsequently released.
-Trump himself has stated he will make a statement before entering the court room and claims to be making a “National address” tonight - an act that may prompt a gag order on him and gagging nationally.
-Very, VERY few MAGAts are protesting Trump’s arrest, and the lack of throngs of protestors defending Trump in the streets is likely a reason Trump has stopped calling for them.
-The statements have been proceeded by two well-reasoned posts on his failing Truth Social site, one of which demanded NYC Attoney General Alvin Bragg “INDICT HIMSELF!” for “leaking” news that all 34 charges against Trump are felonies (uh, no), the other a continued personal attack agains January 6 Special Counsel Jack Smith as his investigations continue.
-Two Trumpers that have appeared to support Trump are “Rep.” “George Santos” and GOP Party Leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, fresh off her worst-in-several-years feature on 60 MINUTES last Sunday (in which she lied about accusing Democrats of being pedophiles - exposed in the first minute of the segment - and then accused Bidenof being a pedophile on social media yesterday).
-Polling heading into today show over 60% of the country disagreeing with Trump being witch hunted on the charges, though his polling lead in the 2024 GOP primary continues to hold steady.
-In what can only be described as hilarious, a Trump supporter who handed out whistles to be used to drown out pro-indictment protestors were instead taken BY those protestors and used against Trump-supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene - and the cacophony was so raucous Greene fled the scene and is reportedly now leaving the courthouse!
-As she left, Greene explained to pro-Trump RSBN that she believes Trump’s arrest will be on a par with the arrests of Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ.
-Uh …
-Ex-President Trump is scheduled to appear at 2:15 pm EDT for his arraignment. NYC AG Alvin Bragg will have a press conference afterwards, at which time the list of particulars will be released.
With all the logistics of a space launch (or the OJ Bronco chase), Ex-President Trump is headed to the courthouse for his arraignment.
DONALD JOHN TRUMP IS NOW UNDER ARREST BY AUTHORITIES IN NEW YORK CITY IN CONNECTION WITH THE STORMY DANIELS PAYOFF SCANDAL.
As Trump is currently being fingerprinted and preparing to be arraigned, other investigations against him continue. Within the last hour, a federal appeals court ruled against Trump and ordered eight former Trump aides to testify in connection with Special Counsel Jack Clark's investigation(s?) into the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The ruling of the three judges - two Obama appointees and one Trump appointee - was unanimous. This after news earlier in the week that Secret Service agents assigned to Trump will testify this Friday in connection with the investigation into Trump removing highly classified documents from the White House at the end of his Presidency.
Ex-President Trump has entered the court room to be arranged for the charges against him in connection with the Stormy Daniels payoffs. At the same time, a phony Trump mugshot with the caption NOT GUILTY is now being marketed on the Trump Presidential web site. The cost for a T-shirt with the image is $47.
DONALD TRUMP PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO ALL 34 FELONY CHARGES OF FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS AND CONSPIRACY IN CONNECTION WITH PAYOFFS MADE TO STORMY DANIELS BEFORE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
This link contains the first photo of Donald Trump as a criminal defendant.
https://spoutible.com/thread/4167928
As the charges are read, reports are emerging that the charges against Donald Trump are based on payoffs made to TWO women. it is believed the second woman may be Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate who had an ongoing affair with Trump and who also received payoffs from Trump, possibly through former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker ...
My classes at Columbia College Chicago are now screening CNN's coverage of the Donald Trump arraignment (because they were all watching anyway) ...
As the court case continues, CNN's John King reports Donald Trump Jr. has published a photo of Judge Juan Merchan's daughter with a note claiming she worked on the Biden Presidential campaign on his (Trump Jr.'s) social media feed.
The arraignment hearing is over. Trump has left the courtroom without making a statement - and under the custody of New York police. The indictments are now no longer under seal.
There was a discussion about Trump's incendiary posts, including the post with Trump appearing to hold a baseball bat behind NYC Attorney General Alvin Bragg, and concerns about similar posts. Whether the Donald Trump Jr. post of Judge Marcan's daughter was brought up is unclear, nor is it clear whether a gag order or warning was formally given.
Ex-President Trump has left the court house in New York City, and it is believed he is headed to LaGuardia Airport to return to his compound in Mar-a-Lago
CNN reports that the 34 charges are connected to a scheme hatched by Ex-President Trump in 2015 as part of his 2016 Presidential campaign, and that payments were made to Stormy Daniels and Karen MacDougal as part of the scheme. CNN further describes the indictment as "bare bones" and does not specifically describe a conspiracy - but a "statement of facts" filed as part of the indictment describes an "illegal conspiracy" in which "a catch and kill scheme" combined with "repeated patterns" of hiding information "from the voting public" from August 2015 to December 2017 ... the statement of facts essentially is claiming election fraud, hiding some facts while exposing others in an effort to manipulate perceptions of Trump prior to the 2016 Presidential election ... each check used to make a payoff is a charge ... the facts include reports of a 2015 meeting, payments to a door man at Trump Tower, and more!
Trump's defense attorneys are addressing the media throng. Attorney Todd Blanche are claiming the entire prosecution is purely political and that there is "nothing" in the indictments. Blanche is "disappointed" and "sad." Trump media attorney Joe Tacopina (it's what he is and what he does) is spitting out there are "no facts!" in the indictment (though as we just discovered, the facts are in an attached document). Trump, Blanche is reporting, is "frustrated," but that no gag order was imposed (Blanche is downplaying Trump's posts) and is creating a whataboutism about "everyone" not be mean ... Tacopina is crying that "the rule of law" is "dying" because of these charges, and that the Trump/Bragg photo was "manufactured" (no word on why if that was true Trump reposted it) ... now the attorneys are claiming there is no "disunity between them (made without proffering on the first court date of the case?) ...
CNN reports the indictment involves a number of stories the Trump campaign allegedly paid to hide a series of unflattering stories, ranging from affairs to alleged out-of-wedlock children, as part of a scheme to hide all the stories prior to the 2016 Presidential election ... CNN reports that the indictment appears to be solely on the hush money payments and not tax or spending violations ... each count is based on each check that was cut and send to Daniels or MacDougal ...
A copy of the indictment can be accessed at this link:
https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-SOF.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3fcs9z6MAEsSvQgHPB4C8csKIHeRww3DhQ2xgHIHovio4aT30viRPPHsg
A copy of the Statement of Facts that accompanied the Trump indictments can be found here:
https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-SOF.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0xmx5EGMw41Iq_egf31SJcNviRMMOokL4sOlnlKqnkzf9sqyRzSiOKQAs
Ex-President Trump has boarded his plane to return to Mar-a-Lago. A press conference headed by Alvin Bragg is pending.
Photos of Judge Merchan's daughter originally posted by Donald Trump Jr. have also been posted by Eric Trump and GOP Leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Z-Q-R, GA). This as other reports claim the next hearing on the case where Trump will need to appear is tentatively scheduled for December 4. No word on when the case may go to trial, though various motions by Trump attorneys to delay or stretch the issue (or try to dismiss the case altogether) are likely.
Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is on ... "intent to fraud and intent to conceal a crime - that's what this case is about." Defendant "repeatedly" made false statements and made others do the same "month after month" for nine straight months (in relation to the reimbursements to Michael Cohen for various payments). "Why? ... crimes relating to the 2016 election" in concert with a "catch-and-kill" scheme created in 2015 by Cohen and David Pecker ... setting up shell companies to do so and continually lying about it ... big focus on the Stormy Daniels payments, with a scheme to hide the reality of the payments and repayments to Michael Cohen ...
Qs to Bragg ... Q: why no conspiracy charge? A: NY law doesn't require it ... Q: then why no political payment violations? A: we charged what we charged ... Q: why didn't you charge earlier? A: We got more evidence and charged now ... Q: why are you charging when the previous NY AG and the Feds didn't charge? A: new evidence and we do our own thing over the feds (not mentioned: William Barr specifically pulling the plug on investigations when he got the job) ... Q: why no tax charges? A: our charges are our charges ... Q: why no election law charges? A: the charge is falsifying business records, also patience ... and that's it!
Dissection of the indictment and statement of facts reveals some interesting notes such as Donald Trump Jr.'s signature on a number of the records in question ... a note of a meeting between Trump and Cohen that took place in the White House itself ... a note that the hush money was falsely claimed as income ... a note of a doorman at Trump Tower being paid $30,000 to be quiet about an alleged story of an out-of-wedlock child ... and a note that some time after the 2016 election there was at least one attempt by Trump to renege on at least one of the payment plans ... (Source: Greg Sargent, Washington Post)