There is a criminal case against Donald Trump because it is said that he paid an adult film actress to keep quiet.
A New York grand jury decided to indict Donald Trump for alleged crimes connected to a $130,000 (£105,000) payment made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
It was supposedly given to Daniels in exchange for her keeping quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump ten years ago.
Even as he makes a run for the White House again in 2024, he is the first former US president to be charged with a crime in court.
The Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed to be “totally innocent” and referred to the charges as “political persecution,” with his attorneys promising to “vigorously battle” them.
The inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney focused on suspicions that money was given to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, whom Trump allegedly worried would come forward with allegations that they had extramarital affairs with him.
The 76-year-old Trump has denied having affairs with both women.
Michael Cohen, who served as Trump's former personal attorney, claimed that he coordinated the payments to Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, and to McDougal with Trump.
In relation to the payments, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in 2018 and was sentenced to more than a year in prison.
According to federal prosecutors, Cohen followed Trump's instructions.
“The Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen in their obsession with trying to get Trump,' but now they've done the unthinkable: indicting a perfectly innocent person in an act of obvious election tampering,” Trump claimed.
This has never been accomplished in the history of our country.
“I think this witch hunt will backfire spectacularly on Joe Biden,” he continued.
Trump was supposed to turn himself in to the police the following week.
He has consistently criticized district attorney Alvin Bragg's probe while denying any misconduct.
His office has been looking into Trump for almost five years, and the grand jury has been hearing its testimony since January.
Trump would have to go to the district attorney's office in New York to be fingerprinted and photographed before making an initial court appearance, according to Mr. Bragg's spokesperson. Prosecutors and Trump's legal team are currently discussing a surrender date.
Trump's son criticizes the indictment
“This is third-world prosecutorial misconduct. It is the opportunistic targeting of a political opponent in a campaign year,” one of Trump's sons, Eric, commented on Twitter.
Trump asked his fans to demonstrate against the government if the former US president was imprisoned, amid recent rumors that he was about to be charged.
In a lengthy statement that he released, he called the inquiry “a political witch hunt seeking to bring down the by far front-runner in the Republican Party.”
He declared, “I did nothing wrong at all,” before denouncing a “corrupt, wicked, and weaponized legal system.”
A Georgia inquiry into election meddling and two federal inquiries regarding Trump's involvement in the US Capitol uprising on January 6, 2021, are among the other cases he is currently facing.
Source: Skynews uk
