Donald Trump will be arraigned in New York on Tuesday on charges reportedly including more than 30 counts of business fraud, including at least one felony. True to form, Trump plans to make it something of a show. While he is unlikely to be handcuffed or perp-walked and may not even have a mug shot taken (out of a fear that it would leak and on the theory that everyone knows what he looks like anyway) and New York law bans cameras in courtrooms, Trump will make sure to milk the moment for the attention he so craves.
Trump is expected to fly from Florida to New York on Monday afternoon, stay at Trump Tower on Monday night, and go to court for his arraignment on Tuesday. From there, he’ll go directly back to Mar-a-Lago, where he’ll offer a rant on Tuesday evening, feeding his continued campaign fundraising off of the criminal charges. But while the public isn’t going to see everything that happens at the arraignment, one very important thing will happen: The charges against Trump will be unsealed.
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It’s important to remember that as of now, exactly what charges Trump faces are still not public, so every commentator you see talking about the strength or weakness of the charges is talking directly out of their own ass. Trump’s own lawyers don’t know what the charges or the evidence are. “We’re way too early to start deciding what motions we’re going to file or not file, and we do need to see the indictment and get to work,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I mean, look, this is the beginning.”
Trump’s lawyers are already saying they’ll vigorously contest the charges—“I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming, because there’s no law that fits this,” Tacopina said—but that’s their job. The commentators who are out there making arguments about indictments they haven’t seen are just being irresponsible. On Tuesday, we’ll know more.
Tuesday will also tell the story of how much violent protest materializes. Claiming his indictment was imminent last month, Trump called for protests, but so far, his supporters have not been showing up in significant numbers. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to New York on Tuesday for what she claims is a “peaceful protest” with the New York Young Republican Club—the group before which she said, in December, “if Steve Bannon and I organized [Jan. 6], we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”
The New York Police Department is preparing for protests, but according to a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, “there are no credible threats to the city at this time.” District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his office, however, have faced death threats and vile, bigoted emails.
“Hay George Soros a** hole puppet If you want President Trump come and get me to,” the New York Daily News reports one email read. “Remember we are everywhere and we have guns.”
Another read, “How do we a a [n----r] like you removed feom office?”
Trump has aimed some of his most vicious attacks at Bragg in recent weeks, including a photo of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg. That post was subsequently removed. Trump has also attacked the judge who will be overseeing his case, claiming New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan “HATES ME.”
Whatever we learn Tuesday, the Manhattan criminal charges against Trump remain just one of the serious legal threats he faces. He is additionally the subject of investigations by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis and special counsel Jack Smith.
The Republican Party’s leadership and its presidential candidates have leaned further and further into doom-and-gloom “woke apocalypse” rhetoric. Kerry and Markos analyze what has so far been a losing strategy to make Americans feel frightened of demanding actual policy ideas from Republicans.
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