Would the American Prosecution Department be in the process of making American History by preferring 34 felonious charges against the former US President Donald Trump?
It is now crystal clear that the former US president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in 2016 as the US President of the time.
Trump’s arraignment in Court is the first time in the American History that a former commander in chief of the defense forces has faced criminal charges.
The indictment to charge Trump was initially filed under seal and kept under Key and lock keeping both the public and the media in blackout as to what the prosecution file contained.
Trump was later required to surrender voluntarily to face an arraignment, which he did on April 4, 2023 at New York City District Court.
The case as tabled before the Judge
Although according to American Laws, falsifying records are usually treated as a misdemeanor, Mr. Trump is charged with committing felonious offences.
That denotes a more serious crime, which could include prison time if a maximum sentence is preferred by the Jury.
During the court appearance on Tuesday 4, April 2023 New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg had this to say about the charges his office has brought against the former president. “At its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white-collar cases. Allegations that someone lied, again and again, to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable.”
Mr Trump – who pleaded not guilty to all the charges – insisted after leaving the courthouse that there was no case to answer.
The charges all relate to a $130,000 hush-money payment by lawyer Michael Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels just before 2016 election in order to prevent her from talking about her allegations that she had an affair with Mr Trump in 2007.
The first line of the Statement of Facts, a document that accompanied the indictment, spells out the prosecution case: The defendant DONALD J. TRUMP repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.
In 2017, after becoming president, Mr Trump met with Cohen in the White House. Shortly thereafter – and over the course of 10 months – Mr Trump began sending cheques from a trust handling his assets, and later from his own bank account, to Cohen.
Those cheques were registered as “legal fees,” but Cohen says they were, in fact, reimbursements for the hush-money payment.
The prosecution case states: The payment records, kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, were false New York business records. In truth, there was no retainer agreement, and Lawyer Cohen was not being paid for legal services rendered in 2017. The Defendant caused his entities’ business records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct.
Mr Bragg alleges that Mr Trump falsified the true nature of the payments because those payments were made in support of a crime. While hush-money payments are not by themselves illegal, spending money to help a presidential campaign but not disclosing it violates federal campaign finance law.
Mr Trump’s defenders argue that is a legal stretch, and that this is a politically-motivated prosecution.
THE HISTORY
Although Donald Trump is the first US President ever criminally charged, other former presidents have come close to be charged.
President Ulysses S. Grant was technically the first President to be arrested—for speeding on a horse and buggy in 1872.
President Richard Nixon stepped down in 1974 after tapes revealed he participated in the cover-up of the 1972 break-in at a Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate complex.
