Donald Trump Won’t Be Cuffed Lawyer Says: Former President Donald Trump will not be cuffed when he shows up for his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Donald Trump: The Update
A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict the former president for 30 counts of business fraud on Thursday. The case is widely believed to center around a $130,000 payoff to Stephanie Clifford.
Tacopina believes that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and the Democrats will do everything they can to get joy out of humiliating Donald Trump. This is uncharted territory for a former president. No president has been arrested since Ulysses S. Grant was arrested in 1872 for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Washington, D.C.
“As far as mugshots, perp walk — I’m sure they’ll try to make sure they get some joy out of this by parading him,” Tacopina said. “This is unprecedented in this country’s history. I don’t know what to expect other than an arraignment.”
Trump’s attorney expects the former president to fight back against the charges.
“He initially was shocked,” Tacopina told the “Today” show. “After he got over that, he put a notch on his belt and he decided, ‘We have to fight now.’
“He got into a typical Donald Trump posture where he’s ready to be combative on something that he believes is an injustice. His knees don’t buckle … he’s now in the posture where he’s ready to fight this.”
What Happens Now?
The former president will not make a plea in the case because he does not believe any crimes were committed because private funds were used for a “very common confidentiality agreement.” This case will be precedent-setting for how future presidents are treated.
Many historians argue that never again will presidents be treated as being exempt from prosecution for things they do.
“Today it’s Donald Trump, tomorrow it’s a Democrat, the day after it’s your friend … the day after that, you or me,” Tacopina said. “And that’s what concerns me — when a prosecutor can use the law and the system to go after a political opponent. It’s something that frightens me.”
Trump Fires Back
Donald Trump will appear before Justice Juan Merchan on Tuesday to hear the charges against him. The former president attacked Democrats for their “Get Trump” obsession on his TruthSocial site. He claimed that no one has been subjected to the same degree of public scrutiny as himself, saying they had gotten nothing so far on him.
“THE RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS HAVE LIED, CHEATED, AND STOLEN IN THEIR MANIACAL OBSESSION TO “GET TRUMP,” BUT NOW THEY’VE GONE TOO FAR, INDICTING A TOTALLY INNOCENT MAN IN AN ACT OF OBSTRUCTION AND BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE. HOW MUCH MORE ARE AMERICAN PATRIOTS EXPECTED TO TAKE???…AND ALL OF THIS WHILE OUR COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL!” Trump wrote.
Donald Trump campaign spokeswoman Jenna Ellis claimed that the real Democrat goal in prosecuting Trump was to drain his campaign war chest to make winning in 2024 easier. She noted that Democrats want to help Trump win the Republican nomination so they can easily trounce him in the general election with the help of this prosecution.
“This is what the indictments are really all about… Dems are fine with the fanaticism in the base and even propelling him to the GOP nom. They only care about the general. We need to care about the general,” Ellis said on Twitter.
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John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.