A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict former President Donald Trump. While the exact charges aren’t yet known publicly, most assume the indictment is linked to the $130,000 in hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
“We don’t even know the charges yet,” Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Trump, told Insider. “As with any other case, we are going to fight this right from the start. We will fight this miscarriage of justice immediately and aggressively.”
Trump’s defense lawyers say District Attorney Alvin Bragg has focused on the so-called “hush money” given to the adult film actor. The New York Times reported that Bragg’s case “hinges on the allegation that the crime of falsifying business records – bookkeeping fraud – was done in the commission of another crime, a campaign finance violation.”
Daniels claims she and Trump had an affair before he became president and that he paid her off to keep silent. Trump, however, has repeatedly denied ever having a sexual relation with her. “I did absolutely nothing wrong,” he insisted. Donald Trump accused the DA’s office pushing such a charge as a “political Witch-Hunt trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party.”
According to The Times, the charge usually has a five-year statue of limitations as a felony, but those are extended when a defendant continuously lives out of state, “as Trump did during his presidency.”
Donald Trump is the first former US president to be charged with a crime since 1876, when Ulysses S. Grant was pulled over for speeding in a horse and buggy.
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