The grand jury indicts Donald Trump for a black payment to a porn actress

Flags and banners in support of the former president, last week, before the headquarters of the Trump Organization in New York. Jorge Fuentelsaz (EFE)

A grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump in the case for the secret payment of $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the 2016 presidential campaign in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair, according to sources citing US media. .

The 2024 Republican White House nominee has repeatedly denied the relationship, and her lawyers have accused Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, of racketeering.

They have also denounced the movements of prosecutor Alvin Bragg, considering that they obey political interests contrary to the Republican.

The specific indictment, which has been filed under seal by the Manhattan district attorney's office, will likely be announced in the coming days.

It is assumed that behind the scenes, Bragg's office is negotiating Trump's surrender.

If he accepts it, the unprecedented image of a former president, accompanied by the Secret Service, could be released while he is photographed and fingerprinted in court.

The Manhattan prosecutor's office earlier this month invited Trump to testify before the grand jury that has investigated the alleged payment, a sign that indictment was imminent.

The Republican declined the offer, according to prosecution sources.

The accusation opens a legally unknown scenario, given that no US president, active or retired, has faced criminal charges.

It also poses an existential dilemma for his party, already divided, when it comes to supporting or rejecting a candidate for the White House in 2024 appointed by the courts, although until now it has closed ranks around the tycoon.

The police have arranged contingency plans in Washington and New York, headquarters of Trump's emporium, in anticipation of protests by the former president's followers, after the appeal made by him on his social network.

Several dozen Trump supporters demonstrated before the Manhattan prosecutor's office on Monday, but on Tuesday, the day he was supposedly going to be arrested, as he announced on his social network, it was difficult to find a supporter among the hundred or so journalists gathered.

After Trump rejected the invitation of the prosecution, the presence of his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who testified twice behind closed doors last week, and that of Daniels herself made evident the imminence of the prosecution, which, however, was delayed again this Wednesday.

Cohen, a former confidant of the mogul, was sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty in federal court to violating campaign finance laws for buying the silence of Daniels and another woman during the final stretch of the 2016 campaign, among other crimes.

The lawyer paid Daniels through a shell company before being reimbursed by Trump, whose company, the Trump Organization, recorded the delivery as legal expenses.

In early 2016, Cohen also arranged for former Playboy model Karen McDougal to receive $150,000 from the publisher of the tabloid

, who promised not to run the scoop.

Trump, who at the time was already married to his current wife, Melania Trump, denies having sexual relations with either woman.

One year until trial

The agenda that now opens before the Republican leads to a crucial date, the 2024 presidential elections. Any trial would take more than a year, according to legal experts, so it could coincide with the last leg of the campaign.

If he is formally charged, he would be the first president, active or retired, of the United States to face criminal proceedings.

But criminal cases in New York take on average more than a year to progress from indictment to trial, according to sources at the Manhattan district attorney's office.

That raises the possibility of a trial in the middle of the campaign, or even after the election has been held, although putting a president-elect or sitting on trial on state charges is well into uncharted legal territory.

If he was chosen,

In the short term, the indictment would involve Trump traveling to the district attorney's office in downtown New York to turn himself in.

In high-profile cases like this, the defendant's lawyers and prosecutors often agree on a date and time to avoid the embarrassment of a house arrest;

it also avoids handcuffing the defendant with his hands behind his back, choosing to handcuff him in front.

In an ironic twist on the script, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and Trump's main Republican rival, should approve the request for the extradition of the defendant, who usually resides in that state, although legal experts maintain that his role would be strictly administrative.

In the end, it has not been any of the large pending accounts with the law that has ended up knocking down Trump, but rather a

cause , a bedroom adventure, although with serious implications for the transparency of the 2016 campaign, due to the use of black money.

But it is paradoxical that this case is the one that has pushed the Republican to court the most, if the rest of the processes against him are taken into account: two federal ones, for keeping confidential documents and for his role in instigating the assault to the Capitol in 2021;

another for trying to subvert the results of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia, and the parallel cases for tax fraud in the Manhattan and New York prosecutors.

The

it derives from the first, since it is based on an allegedly fraudulent accounting record.

In fact, in December, the Trump Organization, the name of the family emporium, was found guilty of tax fraud in a criminal case also investigated by the Manhattan prosecutor's office.

In September, New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump and three of his adult children civilly for what she described as "exceptional" fraud, a case that could draw penalties of at least 250 million dollars.

The explosive dimension that this case has taken on is also especially striking, if one takes into account that it was about to go to the dead end in February of last year after the resignation of two of the main lawyers from Bragg's office, recently arrived to the position

The resignation of those who until then directed the investigation was interpreted as a withdrawal by the prosecution and perhaps an eventual filing of the case, but nothing could be further from the truth, as evidenced by the accusation in a case that has accelerated in recent weeks. with the presentation of evidence before the grand jury.

Since mid-January, the grand jury has been meeting every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at 2 p.m. local time.

The judicial front facing Trump is so broad that President Joe Biden appointed a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, in November to oversee all investigations involving him.

In all cases, starting with that of Daniels, the Republican candidate for the White House in 2024 has denied the biggest.

About prosecutor Bragg, Trump wrote on Saturday on his social network, Truth Social, that the office that the Democrat heads is "corrupt and highly politicized."

Like squid ink, he has also attacked the New York State Attorney, the Democrat James, assuring that she is the object of a "witch hunt", that is, of a political persecution motivated by the interests of what was in her day candidate to govern New York.

The alleged political motivation that Trump and his lawyers blame Bragg and James was the argument used on Saturday by the most ranking Republican in the US, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, who has maintained a relationship with Trump full of ups and downs

Closing ranks, McCarthy tweeted his intention to call on Republican congressional committee heads to "immediately investigate whether federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions."

“Here we are again: a scandalous abuse of power by a radical prosecutor letting violent criminals go free while pursuing political vendetta against President Trump,” McCarthy said,

in allusion to what is probably the biggest challenge for the Manhattan prosecutor: the reform of the bail and probation system to avoid the revolving doors of police stations and jails.

An ammunition that the Republicans use to exonerate Trump of all blame and that deepens the polarization that the ex-president left as the main legacy.

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