The exact moment in which the indictment (and arrest) of former US President Donald Trump could take place (he ventured that it would be Tuesday and the media are defoliating the daisy: Wednesday? Next week?) is not the only doubt that hangs over his presumed guilt in the case of a payment of 130,000 dollars to buy the silence of the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels.
The only thing that is clear is that the events, dating back to just before the 2016 election in which he defeated Hillary Clinton, had the opposite effect.
If he intended to bury the relationship between the two, which he denies, he has not succeeded: seven years later they are still talking about it.
Will we see him handcuffed?
What are the chances of him ending up behind bars?
Will he resist the process?
How will all this affect his chances of returning to the White House in 2024?
This is a review of the questions and answers that have been generated by a piece of news that, despite being a mere possibility, has caused a real political earthquake in the United States this week.
And for this time, journalism as a draft of history is not a cliché: if he ends up charged, it will be the first time that a former president has gone through that process.
What exactly is he accused of?
According to Daniels, the two had sex in 2006 at a hotel on Lake Tahoe, as the culmination of a day at a celebrity golf tournament.
Trump was then a real estate mogul, as well as a celebrated television personality.
Daniels says that he suggested that he help her in her career in that medium.
A decade later, Michael Cohen, then a Trump lawyer, paid the interpreter $130,000 a few weeks before the 2016 election to shut up.
That was proven at a trial in 2018, in which Cohen was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison.
Cohen affirms that his client, already a tenant in the White House, reimbursed him for that amount.
He also denies that extreme.
It is not illegal in the United States to buy the silence of a person, but it is illegal to do it with the money of an electoral campaign,
in that case, the one that brought Trump to the presidency.
The key is in the way in which that movement was reflected in the accounting of the Trump Organization.
This documentary falsification by itself is considered an offense, which becomes a crime if it is proven that the operation was instrumental in the commission of another crime.
It is not yet clear which, if any, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the former president's latest archenemy, will choose, but legal experts talk of these options: a federal or state campaign finance offense or conspiracy to influence or prevent an election.
This documentary falsification by itself is considered an offense, which becomes a crime if it is proven that the operation was instrumental in the commission of another crime.
It is not yet clear which, if any, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the former president's latest archenemy, will choose, but legal experts talk of these options: a federal or state campaign finance offense or conspiracy to influence or prevent an election.
This documentary falsification by itself is considered an offense, which becomes a crime if it is proven that the operation was instrumental in the commission of another crime.
It is not yet clear which, if any, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the former president's latest archenemy, will choose, but legal experts talk of these options: a federal or state campaign finance offense or conspiracy to influence or prevent an election.
Who decides on the suitability of your imputation?
The members of the grand jury instructing the process, before which Bragg has built his case.
They have to vote in favor of at least 12 of the total of 23 citizens of Manhattan that compose it.
On Monday they heard testimony from a Trump ally, Robert J. Costello, Cohen's former legal adviser, whose credibility he sought to undermine.
After testifying, Costello told reporters, "I told the grand jury this guy [by Cohen] wouldn't tell you the truth if you put a gun to his head."
The fact that the Manhattan prosecutor offered Trump to testify a couple of weeks ago speaks, if the city's judicial customs are followed, of the imminence of his indictment.
Robert Costello leaves the Manhattan district attorney's office Monday after testifying.
Stephanie Keith (Bloomberg)
What will happen if they charge him?
You will have to appear in court.
It may take several days from when your lawyers receive the notification and that time.
You are also allowed to make a first statement by videoconference.
He is currently in Florida;
Upon leaving the White House, he moved to the Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, from where the social network he founded after his expulsion in 2021 from Twitter is especially active these days.
It's called Truth Social and in it he released an angry message written in all caps Saturday morning in which he assumed, based on "leaks," that he would be arrested on Tuesday.
People around him have assured
The New York Times
that it is in his mind to present himself of his own free will.
If he resisted, it could be the unlikely event that he would have to issue an extradition order to Florida, which would have to be authorized by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who by all accounts ranks as Trump's biggest challenger in the race for the nomination. Republican for next year's presidential election.
And then?
More unknowns.
They have to take her fingerprints, take the characteristic frontal and profile photos of the inmates, and read her her rights (she will remember that part from the movies: "You have the right to remain silent...").
That trance will be in private.
Afterwards, you have to appear before the judge, for the public reading of the charges and your plea of not guilty or guilty.
He could go to that in handcuffs (with his hands in front, or behind his back), although it is not a
sine qua non condition.
All this will be accompanied by the spectacular device of the Secret Service that accompanies him as a former president.
At this point, as at so many others in the process, Bragg moves in a precarious balance between proving that no one, not even Trump, is above the law and leaving it beyond doubt that we are not facing a political trial of a person who plans to appear in the race for the White House, and that he will end up facing with great probability, if he reaches the end, President Joe Biden.
Could Trump end up in prison?
It is unlikely.
Falsifying business documents is a crime in New York State with penalties of up to four years.
It is not clear that the district attorney in charge of the case, the Democrat Bragg, will request prison for him.
Even if he didn't, if he is found guilty, the judge could put him in jail.
Are protests expected?
The informational volcano that erupted on Saturday morning included a call for his supporters to protest to “take back” the “country”.
Those words refreshed the echoes of the messages he sent in the days before the assault on the Capitol.
New York and Washington reinforced security this Tuesday at key points in both cities, where, for the moment, more reporters than supporters could be seen.
The media reported last week that several federal and local agencies held meetings to prepare for the eventuality of an explosion of discontent among his supporters.
Is this your only pending case with justice?
No. Trump is facing several investigations.
On the one hand, that of his alleged involvement in the events of January 6, 2021. The Department of Justice has opened "the largest process in the history of the United States", and, as part of it, investigates the alleged attempts to blocking the peaceful transition of power by the man who was defeated at the polls by Biden, but who has since engaged in theories, proven false time and time again in court, that his election was stolen.
Whether they consider him responsible for the attack on the Capitol remains to be seen, as the House committee that investigated him for a year and a half concluded: its nine members recommended trying him for inciting an insurrection,
conspiracy to issue false testimony and to defraud the United States and for obstruction of an official procedure of Congress, the vote to certify Biden's victory.
Related to that period between the elections and January 6 are the investigations by another grand jury, this one in Atlanta, into his alleged attempt to influence Republican officials to reverse the result in that state, which the Democratic candidate won.
He is also indicted over the hundreds of classified documents from his time as president that he took with him when he left office and that the FBI found in a search at Mar-a-Lago.
Besides, there are civil proceedings, also pending, for his business in New York.
Related to that period between the elections and January 6 are the investigations by another grand jury, this one in Atlanta, into his alleged attempt to influence Republican officials to reverse the result in that state, which the Democratic candidate won.
He is also indicted over the hundreds of classified documents from his time as president that he took with him when he left office and that the FBI found in a search at Mar-a-Lago.
Besides, there are civil proceedings, also pending, for his business in New York.
Related to that period between the elections and January 6 are the investigations by another grand jury, this one in Atlanta, into his alleged attempt to influence Republican officials to reverse the result in that state, which the Democratic candidate won.
He is also indicted over the hundreds of classified documents from his time as president that he took with him when he left office and that the FBI found in a search at Mar-a-Lago.
Besides, there are civil proceedings, also pending, for his business in New York.
He also has an open case over the hundreds of classified documents from his time as president that he took with him when he left office and that the FBI found in a search at Mar-a-Lago.
Besides, there are civil proceedings, also pending, for his business in New York.
He also has an open case over the hundreds of classified documents from his time as president that he took with him when he left office and that the FBI found in a search at Mar-a-Lago.
Besides, there are civil proceedings, also pending, for his business in New York.
Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels.
MANDEL NGAN ETHAN MILLER (AFP)
And what do they say in the Republican Party?
Over the weekend, leading members of the conservative party came out to criticize the idea of an indictment.
One of the first was Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who promised to launch an investigation in Congress to find out if the elections are being interfered with "with politically motivated trials."
This Tuesday, at an annual meeting of party legislators, held to discuss the conservative agenda in Orlando (Florida) and monopolized by the news coming from Manhattan, McCarthy lamented that "a district attorney is meddling in national politics."
For his part, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul tweeted: “An impeachment by Trump would amount to a disgusting abuse of power.
[Bragg] deserves to be jailed."
Although the reaction that has been most requested has been that of DeSantis, who criticized that a prosecutor ignore "the crimes that occur in his jurisdiction" and prefer to "go back to a case from years ago and try to use the payment to an actress porn to pursue a political agenda.”
The conservative newspaper
The Wall Street Journal
has editorialized against the idea of an arrest of the former president, because it would lead the country into "an eternal media circus."
“And he would do so at the risk that a single juror could block a guilty verdict and validate Trump's claim that it is a political process.
(...) An intelligent prosecutor should consider the potential damage to trust in the rule of law by presenting a prosecution that at least half the country will consider political.
A charge against a former president or a current candidate must be for felonies with indisputable evidence.”
How will all this affect Trump's aspirations in 2024?
It's hard to tell.
He could inflame his base or convince the moderates in his party, whom he needs to win, that it is not a good idea to insist on him as a candidate, taking into account that he has lost three consecutive elections (the legislative ones in 2018 and 2022 , and the 2020 presidential elections).
At the moment, the polls confirm time after time that he continues to be the politician with the highest ascendancy over American conservatism at the moment.
A couple of weeks ago, Trump made it clear to reporters at the closing day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) what he does not plan to do: A criminal charge will not stop him from pursuing his party's nomination.
“I wouldn't consider leaving it for a second,” he added.
"Probably something like that would get me votes."
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