Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury on a slew of criminal offenses on Thursday, making him the first former president in U.S. history to be charged with alleged crimes.
U.S. politicians are showing divisions down partisan lines as Americans prepare to see their democratic institutions put to the test. See what’s happening ahead of Tuesday’s expected arraignment of the former president.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump was indicted on Thursday, March 30, on a slew of charges which will be formally unsealed at his arraignment.
Trump’s indictment surrounds a $130,000 payment wired by Trump’s then-lawyer to adult film actress Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday, April 4, around 2:15 pm, in a Manhattan criminal court.Once arraigned, Trump will be required to take a mugshot and provide his fingerprints. A former American president has never been indicted on criminal charges before.
Trump is also currently under investigation in three unrelated criminal probes by different levels of government.Democrat and Republican lawmakers are displaying partisan reactions to the historic indictment.
Democrats maintain that the U.S. justice system is designed to hold individuals accountable for crimes, and that no one is above the law, even a president. Republicans in support of Trump claim the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of Trump is politically motivated.” Trump continues to push the “witch hunt” theory to his followers.
Trump has previously called the case against him a “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
The general counsel for the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, Leslie B. Dubeck, said in a letter to three House Republican chairpeople on Friday: “The Committees’ attempted interference with an ongoing state criminal investigation — and now prosecution — is an unprecedented and illegal incursion on New York’s sovereign interests.”Dubeck said that Trump, “like any other defendant” is entitled to challenge all the charges in court.
For more, check out our exclusive content on CGTN Now and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The China Report.