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New York shields itself from possible protests in anticipation of Trump's indictment for the 'Stormy Daniels case'

2023-03-21T18:10:27.394Z


The headquarters of the Manhattan district attorney's office, which could indict the former president at any time, has been surrounded by metal fences and a police deployment


A Trump supporter demonstrates outside the Manhattan criminal court, where the former president would be tried, this Tuesday in New York.BRENDAN MCDERMID (REUTERS)

Except for the deployment of hundreds of billboards piled up on the sidewalk, and on the one in front, enough to shield the entire block, nothing in the headquarters of the Trump Organization, on Fifth Avenue in New York, suggests that the tycoon and candidate Republican to the White House rush his last hours as an innocent individual.

But the formal accusation of the Manhattan district attorney's office against the former president of the United States is about to materialize, and the blockade of the streets that surround its headquarters, in lower Manhattan, with police trucks crossed and a double cordon of fences , reminds New Yorkers that they are about to experience a historic moment: the first accusation of a president in the country's history, to which the person concerned has responded with the call for protests.

The headquarters of the Trump Organization, the family real estate emporium that is also in the pillory for alleged tax fraud -it was already found guilty in December while another parallel investigation continues-, seems unrelated to the case, at least in the area of ​​​​public access , a shopping arcade that occupies the basement of the building, full of shops and beach bars invariably called

Dulces Trump

,

Asador Trump

or

Tienda Trump

, along with a panel of photographs that could also be titled

The World According to Trump

: Images of His Real Estate Holdings, Florida to Bombay, passing through their golf clubs.

The Trump Store sells

casual clothing

, colorful to play golf -one of the tycoon's hobbies- but monochrome and without political slogans.

The proclamations can only be seen at the entrance to the building, where a few supporters, wearing red baseball caps with the initials MAGA on the front -

Make America Great Again

, the motto of Trump's

reconquest

- wave banners and banners of his candidacy for re-election in 2024 and they insist without any basis that the Republican won the 2020 presidential elections.

Surrounded by an infinitely higher number of photojournalists and onlookers who take selfies, the three followers who this Monday at noon held arms before the Trump Organization did not leave the plot line.

"Trump won the elections in 2020 and will win them again in 2024, or even right now, but they want to prevent him with a judgment that is baseless because it is a hunt," explained a middle-aged, red-cheeked white man, who did not want to identify.

“Of course we are going to stop it, Trump has to go back to the White House.”

As?

"Demonstrating, protesting, in the streets."

The man refused to explain what kind of street mobilization they are contemplating.

In the afternoon, before the headquarters of the prosecutor's office headed by the Democrat Alvin Bragg, the first African-American to lead it -a condition that has pushed Trump to denounce the "racist" motivation of the case-, several dozen people summoned by the New York Republican Youth Club protested peacefully.

As always, there were more police and journalists than protesters, but nothing in the behavior of the small group suggested a violent response when Bragg announced the charges against Trump.

On the contrary, a spokesman for the call urged Trump supporters not to go to the place "because this is going to be chaos, a political circus."

Terms very similar to those used by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, also a Republican, who holds the key to turning Trump over to the authorities if he does not show up voluntarily.

"I have no interest in getting involved in any kind of circus fabricated by some district attorney for [billionaire George] Soros," Trump's potential rival in the 2024 campaign said Monday.

The Young Republican Club of New York has recently achieved some public prominence through its calls, such as the one that in December brought together prominent party figures, including anti-Semites and supremacists, not to mention the controversial New York congressman George Santos, the subject of several investigations for making up entire chapters of his resume.

The December call was a thermometer of the health of the most ultra sector of the Republican Party, the one that pays homage to the former president.

If Trump's supporters insist on supporting his call for protests, it will be a litmus test for the city, the first to which the renewed State law on weapons carrying permits is subjected, The City portal pointed out on

Tuesday

.

The state Assembly's amendment to the law, in response to a Supreme Court ruling that in June annulled a local centenary statute by approving the right to bear arms without showing just cause, involved declaring gun-free zones in the city, which in turn has been questioned by a Syracuse judge.

"A political circus"

On Monday, the city's police department, the largest in the country, laced up metal barriers around Lower Manhattan streets adjacent to the courthouse where Trump would be arraigned if indicted, though there were no details on the schedule.

Billboards were also unfurled across the street, in front of a small city-owned plaza where the young Republicans demonstrated.

The placement of the billboards indicates according to

The City

that the circumscribed areas will probably be considered gun-free zones in the event of protests, based on the reform approved by the Albany Assembly, the state government, in September to reverse the Supreme Court ruling.

This means that anyone caught with a licensed weapon within designated protest areas could be detained.

“It is my hope that if people exercise their First Amendment [free speech] rights, they do so peacefully and thoughtfully,” Rep. Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-Albany, said in a statement. gun-free zones law.

"If they don't, we'll have the NYPD to enforce the law."

The scenario posed by Dinowitz is the most serious, because it would also constitute a

casus belli

, or at least one more excuse, to be added to Trump's list of grievances, at the head of all of them the political persecution to which, according to his version , is submitted by Bragg and by the also Democrat Letitia James, attorney general of New York, who is instructing another cause, of a civil nature, on the irregularities of his emporium.

Witch hunt or political circus, events are as unpredictable as the agenda that the prosecution manages, but one thing is certain: that the authorities will do everything possible to avoid a repeat of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Because of that scenario is not fought even by a city as Democratic as New York, even if four traditionally blue seats changed hands in November: several New Yorkers, the last one just five days ago, have been arrested after the Capitol video circuit showed their presence inside or around the building on the day of the Trump insurrection.

Those arrested include an employee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the son of a Brooklyn judge and, most recently,

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-03-21

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