The twice impeached former US president allegedly paid money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 US election.
Former US President Donald Trump says he expects to be arrested on Tuesday in a case that allegedly involves him paying silent money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump called on his supporters to protest ahead of his alleged arrest.
“The leading Republican candidate and former President of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take back our nation!” Trump wrote, referring to himself and citing a leak from the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan.
He did not say what the charges would be.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.
The investigation relates to a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney and fixative, made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, said she was paid not to go public with an affair she says she had with Trump years earlier. Trump denied the affair took place.
“So what the grand jury is investigating is whether these payments to Michael Cohen … were in fact a violation of campaign spending funds,” said Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC.
Trump’s attorney told CNBC Friday night that his client would surrender to face criminal charges if indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.
If the Manhattan district attorney were to indict Trump, the 76-year-old would become the first former president to be charged with a crime.
Trump, a Republican, was president from 2017 to 2021 and has already declared another candidacy for the White House. He lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations related to his arranging payments to Daniels and another woman, among other crimes. He said Trump asked him to make the payments.
Cohen testified before the grand jury on Monday and again on Wednesday, according to his attorney, Lanny Davis. Grand jury proceedings are not public.
Daniels’ attorney said she spoke with prosecutors last week.
The investigation is one of many legal issues Trump faces as he seeks the Republican Party’s nomination for president.
“Trump faces a much bigger set of charges,” Hanna reported. “Yet he chose this case to bring it to light and issued a call for protest, which is very similar to the call he made on January 6 when the riot broke out on Capitol Hill in DC and which Trump is also under investigation.”
The riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 involved his supporters breaking through the doors and windows of that building and leaving police battered and bloodied as they tried to prevent the certification of the election victory of Biden.
Trump also faces a state-level criminal investigation in Georgia over efforts to overturn the 2020 results there.
A special counsel is currently investigating Trump’s handling of classified government documents after leaving office as well as his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The Trump Organization, the former president’s real estate company, was found guilty of tax evasion in a civil case in December, but he has not been charged, prompting two prosecutors who worked on the investigation to resign.
Trump leads his earliest rivals for his party’s presidential nomination with 43% support from Republicans in a February Reuters/Ipsos poll, compared with 31% for his closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. who has not yet announced his candidacy.
