Former President Donald Trump is back in New York City on the eve of his arrest and pending court appearance.
On Tuesday, Trump becomes the first public official in the office of president to face a criminal indictment after a grand jury said there was sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
The former president is facing more than 30 charges related to an alleged hush money payment before the 2016 election.
The arraignment is scheduled for 2:15 Tuesday afternoon at the district court.
Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told ABC’s This Week it will be unlike any arraignment he’s ever seen.
“You know, this is unprecedented. I don’t know. I’ve done a million arraignments in that courthouse with celebrities and whatnot, but this a whole different thing,” Tacopina explained. “We have Secret Service involved. I understand they’re closing the courthouse for the afternoon. I just don’t know what to expect. Hopefully, what I hope is that we get in and out of there as quickly as possible.”
“That at the end of the day, it’s a typical arraignment where we stand before the judge. We say ‘not guilty.’ We set schedules to file motions and whatnot or discovery and we move forward and get out of there,” he added.
President Trump is expected to fly back to Florida, where he’ll make a public address from his Mar-a-Lago home Tuesday night.
Mark Caleb Smith, Ph.D. is the director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Smith answered a question on a lot of voters’ minds, would a conviction prevent Trump from running for president in 2024?
“No, it would not,” Smith said. “So if he went through a prosecution from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and was convicted, it would not prevent him from running.”
When asked if he thinks the indictment benefits President Trump’s political aspirations, the Cedarville University director of the Center for Political Studies answered, “I think in the short term, this actually makes him stronger with his base. It plays into his narrative that this is a political prosecution, that he’s been victimized by the Deep State. And this is just further evidence of those forces arrayed against him trying to stop him.”
“But I think in the long run, this is probably bad for Mr. Trump,” Smith explained. “I think it will make his primary more difficult potentially. And even if he were to win the primary, I think the general election moves farther out of his reach, because of these kinds of actions.”
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