The New York police will meet this Monday with other agencies to develop a security plan in view of the possible prosecution of former President Donald Trump for his alleged responsibility in the scandal of payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign that led him to the presidency, according to what two sources with knowledge of the matter indicated to our sister network NBC News.
One of the topics to be discussed at the meeting will be the security perimeter around the court and the availability of hundreds of agents to control a possible protest by Trump supporters in the vicinity of the building.
The grand jury reviewing the case will also meet Monday at Manhattan criminal court.
[Law Enforcement Prepares Security Plan in Case Trump Faces Criminal Charges Over Payments to Stormy Daniels]
Attorney Robert Costello confirmed to NBC News that he will testify before the grand jury on Monday in connection with Trump's payments to Daniels.
Former legal adviser to Michael Cohen, a Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty in 2018 to breaking the law by paying Daniels $130,000 "to influence the outcome of the 2016 election," will testify at the defense's request. , indicated a source.
Cohen himself testified before the grand jury last week and is expected to do so again before the panel's final decision.
Former President Donald J. Trump in Tusla, Oklahoma, on March 18, 2023. Sue Ogrocki / AP
Testimony from Costello, who earlier told NBC News that he had never signed a contract with Trump, is believed to contradict Cohen's statements.
Meanwhile, reports of Trump's possible arrest, something the former president himself claimed would happen as soon as next Tuesday, have unleashed a flurry of reactions: from Trump himself blaming the president, Joe Biden, to former Vice President Mike Pence. questioning the prosecutors' motives.
“Biden wants to pretend he has nothing to do with it”
In posts on his Truth Social social media platform, Trump claimed Saturday that he would be arrested Tuesday, based on what he called "illegal leaks" to the media.
"Biden wants to pretend that he has nothing to do with the assault on democracy by the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office when, in fact, he has 'filled' the prosecutor's office with people from the Department of Injustice," he wrote on his social network, the same from which he urged his supporters to protest against an eventual arrest.
Grand jury members cite another call from Trump trying to overturn the election result
March 16, 202300:33
Trump alleged that a senior official from the Washington Department of Justice, referring to Democratic prosecutor Alvin Bragg, is the one who is leading the "witch hunt" against him, allegedly receiving orders from the capital.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has investigated the payment to Daniels allegedly in exchange for his silence about an extramarital sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. The former president has denied the accusations several times.
Bragg tried to reassure his staff in an internal message Saturday that intimidation or threats against them would not be tolerated.
“A politically motivated prosecution”
Pence said in an interview on
ABC News'
This Week that he viewed potential criminal charges facing the former president as a priority for the "radical left."
[Trump's Republican allies wrap him up in the face of a possible criminal charge against him]
“It just feels like a politically motivated prosecution.
And I for one feel that it is not what the American people want to see,” he added.
“I am amazed at the idea of impeaching a former president of the United States, at a time when there is a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan district attorney thinks that impeaching President Trump is his ultimate priority," he added.
“We will control the situation”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also said Sunday that although he is unaware that there have been threats to national security related to Trump's call to protest if he is arrested, authorities remain vigilant against the emergence of eventual protests.
“We always control the situation as best we can.
And obviously we don't want there to be violence, certainly not to the extreme of what we saw on January 6, 2021, Kirby said on Fox, referring to the assault on the Capitol, when Trump had also urged his supporters to demonstrate against the results of the elections in which he was defeated by Biden.
A group of Republicans have already called for a demonstration Monday outside the Manhattan prosecutor's office.