The decision whether to indict former President Donald Trump over hush-money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign lies with a Manhattan grand jury that has been hearing evidence in secret for weeks.
According to insiders, the grand jury is expected to indict Trump on Wednesday and he’ll surrender to authorities in New York City early next week.
DISTURBING: Peeping Joe Biden [Sponsored]
An indictment of Trump, who is seeking the White House again in 2024, would be an unprecedented moment in American history, the first criminal case against a former U.S. president.
It begs the question: Will Trump be handcuffed and “perp walked” for the media?
Anna Cominsky, a New York Law School professor and former criminal defense lawyer, told The Associated Press that her best guess is that Trump’s lawyers will work out a deal with the prosecutor’s office to avoid the spectacle of an indictment with handcuffs and a perp walk.
“There is a great likelihood that he will self-surrender, which means you won’t see a 5 a.m. knock on Mar-a-Lago’s door, officers swarming his house and arresting him and bringing him out in handcuffs,” she said. “He would appear at the prosecutor’s office voluntarily and then be processed, fingerprinted and his picture taken.”
But according to rumors from the Trump camp, the 45th president is considering demanding handcuffs as a challenge to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Sponsored: 9 drugs now linked to form of “dementia”?
The Guardian reported Wednesday —
The former president has reasoned that since he would need to go to the courthouse and surrender himself to authorities for fingerprinting and a mug shot anyway, the sources said, he might as well turn everything into a “spectacle”.
Trump’s increasing insistence that he wants to be handcuffed behind his back for a perp walk appears to come from various motivations, including that he wants to project defiance in the face of what he sees as an unfair prosecution and that it would galvanize his base for his 2024 presidential campaign.
But above all, people close to Trump said, he was deeply anxious that any special arrangements – like making his first court appearance by video link or skulking into the courthouse – would make him look weak or like a loser.
Law enforcement officials are bracing for protests after Trump called on his supporters to protest ahead of the probable indictment.
Trump denies any wrongdoing and has slammed the Manhattan district attorney’s office probe as politically motivated.
Trump has also said that criminal charges he considers flimsy would actually help him in the 2024 presidential contest. Longtime ally Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, said Saturday that District Attorney Bragg “has done more to help Donald Trump get elected.”
Detractors have pointed out that the New York probe is among many legal woes Trump is facing.
SENIORS: Add THIS To Your Coffee [Sponsored]
The Justice Department is investigating his retention of government documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White House, as well as possible efforts to obstruct that probe. Federal investigators are also still probing the Jan. 6, 2021 Captiol riot and Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results with controversial claims.
Portions of a report from a special grand jury in Georgia that investigated whether Trump and his allies illegally interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia shows jurors believed “one or more witnesses” committed perjury and urged local prosecutors to bring charges. The former president never testified, but the report didn’t foreclose the possibility of other charges.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article