by Former President Donald Trump has said he expects to be arrested on Tuesday in connection with an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney and urged his supporters to protest, even as uncertainty over whether any legal action is indeed imminent.
Trump’s advisers on Tuesday made clear they had no specific knowledge of the timing of any potential indictment, even as the former president made the comments on Truth Social, the social media network he founded.
Trump is under investigation over a $130,000 payment he made shortly before the 2016 election to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels about a previous affair. The former president has denied wrongdoing, and federal investigators closed their own inquiry into the payments in 2019.
An indictment against Trump would send the U.S. political world into unprecedented territory — not just the first indictment of a former president, but one who is once again running for the White House. And their protest calls also echoed similar statements by the former president before Jan. 6.
Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, declined to comment on the former president’s statement.
But the testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who arranged the payment and has already been convicted and served time in prison, could help bring the first allegations in history against a former president.
On Truth Social Saturday, Trump urged his supporters to “Protest, take back our nation!”
“The far leading Republican candidate and former President of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,” he wrote in capital letters.
A Trump spokesperson speaking in the background told USA TODAY there had been “no notification” of a potential Trump indictment other than media reports and “leaks from the Department of Justice and the DA’s office.”
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The New York attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s requests for comment.
Manhattan Prosecutors on Wednesday met with daniels. She thanked your lawyer in a tweet for “helping me in our ongoing fight for truth and justice.”
Laurence Tribe, a legal scholar at Harvard Law, said Trump’s impending indictment in New York is uncharted waters.
“There really is no precedent for indicting a former president,” Tribe said. “It’s anyone’s guess what exactly would happen.”
Experts Say Trump’s Arrest Unlikely
Trump says he will still run for president again if he is indicted in any of the current investigations into his conduct. His first rally of the 2024 presidential race is scheduled for March 25 in Waco, Texas.
An indictment is not the same as an arrest; is a formal charge of a crime, while an arrest is when a person is taken into custody. Trump’s arrest is not likely, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said.
“Defendants are not usually arrested in cases like this when they are represented by a lawyer,” he said.
Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at the University of Michigan, said self-surrender is more likely in cases like Trump’s.
“Unless he poses a flight risk or danger to the community, self-surrender seems typical in this type of case,” she said. “He would be booked and fingerprinted and photographed and then likely released on bail.”
Tribe said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is likely to offer Trump a more anonymous way to turn himself in, though the former president is unlikely to accept such routes.
“I’m sure he wishes there was an escalator he could walk down to surrender,” he said. “It’s their standard technique to turn everything into publicity, and no doubt they’ll rake in a lot of money around their self-delivery.”
Trump’s call for protests raises concerns
Although Trump’s spokesman acknowledged that there was “no notification” related to the timing of possible criminal charges, the ex-president’s call for protests aroused the concern of authorities involved in the preparation for such an event.
The call for demonstrations, said an official familiar with the arrangements, could immediately require a larger security footprint in New York and more agents assigned to follow the former president’s movements.
The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly on the matter, was also unaware of a definitive deadline for a possible announcement of the indictment.
Cohen, the former Trump attorney who testified against him, said Trump’s call to action for his supporters echoes those before the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“Donald’s post is eerily similar to his rallying cry before the January 6th insurrection; including a call to protest,” Cohen told USA TODAY. “By doing this, Donald hopes to anger his base, witness another violent confrontation on his behalf, and cash in on it by soliciting contributions.”
With Trump facing possible criminal charges, W. Ralph Basham, former director of the Secret Service, said the prospect raises unprecedented questions for the Secret Service and the limits of the agency’s obligation to provide lifetime protection to the former president. Basham, who served under George HW Bush, said he was unaware of any provision that would allow the agency to waive its protection obligation, even if a protégé is sentenced to prison. “We’re in uncharted territory here,” Basham said. “I’m sure lawyers are struggling to find answers to these questions.”
“I am not aware of anything … that would prevent them (Secret Service agents) from escorting a former president to a detention center in the event of a conviction and prison sentence,” Basham said, adding that the agency would then consider “establish a presence” in a detention facility during any sentence. “I just don’t know,” he said. “The lawyers are going to have to figure that out.”
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Collaborators: Kevin Johnson, David Jackson
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: Trump Expects Arrest Tuesday in Manhattan Investigation
