A historic day begins for the United States. For the first time since the founding of the country, a president, or former president, comes indicted for a crime. Donald Trump will appear today at 14.15 in the building of the Manhattan Criminal Courts of New York City. He will listen to what is disputed with him in the case of Stormy Daniels. Meanwhile, outside the building, his supporters will demonstrate against what is considered to be one form of “political persecution”to block your application for presidential elections 2024. At present, no recurrence of incidents similar to those in the January 6, 2021. Considering the character and his supporters, attention, however, remains altto. Thousands of police officers are stationed around the courthouse and major thoroughfares in Manhattan. The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, asked those who want to demonstrate to “behave”. “This, after all, is where we live,” Adams said.
The private plane Trump landed at New York’s La Guardia Airport at 3.28pm yesterday. The former president was arriving from his residence in Mar-a-Lago. The presidential motorcade then accompanied him to Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenuenot far from Central Park, where Trump met his parents lawyers and spent the night. A small group of demonstrators never left the building’s entrance, displaying the symbols of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) and shouting slogans against the persecution of Trump. The city has remained, until now, in large part indifferent. Here Donald Trump was born, here he took his first steps as a businessman, here he built his network of power and his fortune. New York has never loved him, nor taken really seriously. He left town a couple years ago establishing residency in far more conservative Florida. He is now returning to New York to be indicted. This too, something totally new. For years, New York justice has investigated Trump and his company, without ever being able to get to an indictment. The indictment materializes now, precisely in New York, for something which, however, has nothing directly to do with his activity as an entrepreneur, builder or businessman.
The case is that of Stormy Danielsl’ex porn stars which Donald Trump, through his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohenwould have given 130 thousand dollars to buy their silence on their, brief, sentimental relationship. It was 2016, Trump was in the presidential election campaign, making the news public would have damaged the reputation of the Republican candidate on the eve of the vote. However, the payment would have violated the electoral law of the New York state and would have been falsely accounted for by the Trump Organization as “lawyer fees”. It is not yet clear what the New York District Attorney, Alvin Braggwill object to Trump, but sources familiar with the work of the prosecutor’s office speak of at least 30 counts. However, important details could be revealed before Trump sets foot in the courtroom. Some media, including the Washington Postil New York Times and the Cnn they petitioned the judge Juan Merchanwho presides over the case in court, asking him precisely to make the indictment cases public before the hearing begins.
The same media group had asked Merchan to allow the entry of the cameras in the classroom. Merchan denied this, only allowing photographers to remain in the courtroom before the hearing began. However, the former president’s appearance in New York is already receiving one unprecedented media coverage. Trump’s trip was monitored at every moment. National TV had their crews at the airport Palm Beach, where Trump departed from, and other crews at La Guardia, where Trump landed. Real-time locators followed the red-white-blue plane of Trump while he was in flight. Helicopters they broadcast the motorcade that brought the former president to his Manhattan home, where they were lined up hundreds of journalists. Hordes of reporters will await his arrival at the New York court this early afternoon.
New York is preparing with care, and some concern, for what will happen today. On the streets of the city was deployed a real army of 35,000 agents in riot gear. The whole of Lower Manhattan is cordoned off. The area close to the courthouse is inaccessible. City Mayor Eric Adams has called on Trump supporters to remain calm and respect the dignity of the judicial process. “Although there may be some agitators who think they’re coming to town, our message is clear and simple: Control yourself,” Adams said at a news conference on Monday. “New York is our home and not a place to express our your anger out of place”. According to Police Department sources, however, there are currently no conditions for a repetition of violence similar to that of January 6, 2021. In recent weeks American radical right social media has been closely monitoredand there has been a continuous exchange of information between the various agencies of theintelligence. For now, only far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and the New York Young Republican Club – the young Republicans who declare that Trump “embodies the American people and the our psyche from id to superego” – announced demonstrations near the courthouse. They should not, however, be episodes such as to degenerate into open violence.
There is also a lot of uncertainty about what will happen when, in the early afternoon, Trump will go to court. It is not known whether, as per practice, he will be handcuffed. According to court sources, he should be spared this humiliation given his role as a former president. Trump should still be taken fingerprinted and a mug shot was taken. It is unknown if he will make a statement, in front of the judge, other than that of plead not guilty. Trump spent the whole weekend launching accusations against Bragg and against Judge Merchan himself, who will preside over the case. “The solicitor it has no legal basis”, wrote Trump on Truth Social, asking that the trial be moved from New York, where it is impossible for him to obtain justice, and accusing Judge Merchan himself of being a sort of puppet in the hands of Bragg and George Soros (the financier often appears, in the accusations of Trump and many conservatives, as the ultimate instigator of this process).
However, it is clear that the former president is trying to use this story to strengthen his battle for the candidacy for the elections presidential elections 2024. The latest findings seem to prove him right. A Yahoo/YouGov poll released on Saturday shows that Trump has a 26 percentage point lead over Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor regarded as the strongest of his potential challengers. In a poll conducted in early March, Trump’s lead was eight percentage points. The Trump campaign then picked up seven million dollars, since the indictment was announced last week. It must be said that Trump’s problems with justice do not stop in Manhattan. Three other investigations are underway against him, and above all that of Georgiawhere Trump is accused of having pressured the secretary of state to find him eleven thousand votes needed to battery Joe Biden, it could have very unpleasant legal consequences for him. At the moment, however, all attention is focused on what will happen today in the Manhattan court: a new episode, perhaps the most sensational, in the tumultuous personal and political history of Donald Trump.