Donald Trump returns to Manhattan in unusual circumstances.
Indicted by New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the former president was due to appear before the judge on Tuesday to hear the charges against him.
His return to the city that made him famous was followed across the United States.
The televised spectacle began Monday in Florida during Trump's limousine ride from his Mar-a-Lago palace to West Palm Beach airport, and continued during the flight of his private jet, a red-white Boeing 757 and blue bearing his name in gold letters, to La Guardia airport.
Accompanied by a dozen advisers and lawyers, as well as his son Eric, the former president spent the night in Manhattan in his apartment in the Trump Tower, on 5th Avenue.
Tuesday is also a historic moment, the scope of which is still difficult to measure.
Even in the extraordinary career of Donald Trump, the scene has never had an equivalent: a former American president, crossing Manhattan along Park Avenue and Broadway in a convoy escorted by the Secret Service, to court, at 100 Center Street, for arraignment.
Read alsoDonald Trump's headlong rush
“Perp Walk”
The first ex-president in the history of the United States to be indicted on criminal charges, Trump should be subject only partially to the usual procedure.
His lawyers negotiated every detail with Judge Juan Merchan's office.
If he's going to be fingerprinted and photographed, he shouldn't be handcuffed.
The "perp walk", this custom of the New York justice consisting of exposing the defendants in handcuffs in front of the cameras, should also be spared him, and the judge rejected the requests of the televisions to film the interior of the court.
Legally, there was some suspense over the details of the charges, despite the leaks, which revealed that Trump should answer for 34 misdemeanors.
But the disproportion is great between the facts alleged against Trump, essentially of having broken election financing rules by falsifying the money paid to a mistress, the porn actress Stormy Daniels, and the magnitude of the event and its consequences. potential.
Because Donald Trump is not only a former president, he is also a declared candidate for the presidential election, and the big favorite in the primaries of his own party.
Politically, the indictment has already had the effect of putting Trump back in the spotlight.
A few weeks ago, his campaign was struggling to get off the ground.
Reclusive in Mar-a-Lago, between golf games and private dinners, Trump struggled to attract public attention, and seemed forgotten by the media.
His long monologues on the 2020 election were beginning to tire even his most fervent audience.
A gathering effect
His indictment revived his campaign, and rallied the Republican electorate behind him.
In the first post-indictment poll by Yahoo News/YouGov, Trump now holds a 26-point lead over his potential chief rival for the Republican nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, from just eight points ago. two weeks.
The rally effect also worked in his favor within the party apparatus, forcing key Republican officials, including those who had distanced themselves from Trump or are running against him in the Republican primaries, to come to his defense and denounce his indictment as politically motivated.
Former Vice President Mike Pence or ex-Attorney General Bill Barr, who broke with Trump after his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, also took his side.
The indictment offers Trump his favorite role, that of victim.
Trump, who keeps telling his supporters that he is the victim of a cabal involving the main American federal institutions, and denounces political justice, presented his indictment as additional evidence.
His campaign launched a fundraiser as soon as the indictment was announced, and claims to have already received $7 million in donations.
“The Deep State has been attacking President Trump from the moment he walked down the Golden Escalator and promised to champion the PEOPLE
,” Trump campaign organizers explained.
They spied on him, fabricated a dossier to derail his 2016 campaign, leaked false information to the media in an attempt to sabotage his presidency, intimidated his family members and associates, accused him of being a pawn of Russia, censored damaging information about Biden in the midst of the 2020 election campaign, dispatched the FBI to his residence, and twice impeached him.
And now they charged him even though he did NOT commit a CRIME.
»
New York was also preparing to face demonstrations by Trump supporters.
Barricades were deployed around the courthouse, and the NYPD, the New York police, was put on alert.
Mayor Eric Adams called on potential protesters to calm down.
“Those who intend to come to our city tomorrow, our message is clear and simple: control yourself!
New York is our home, and no place for your misplaced anger.
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Trump's lawyers have tried to tone down his attacks on prosecutor Alvin Bragg, whom he called "an animal" and accused of racism because Bragg was black.
But Trump, who was due to return to Florida on Tuesday as soon as his hearing is over, has scheduled a press conference at Mar-a-Lago.
