New York City prosecutors on Thursday said Don-ald Trump created a false expectation of his arrest and led fellow Republicans in Congress to interfere with a probe of his hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
On Saturday, the former president forecast he would be arrested on Tuesday in the probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
On Monday, three Republican committee chairmen in the U.S. House of Representatives from went on the offensive against District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, accusing him of abusing prosecutorial authority. As of Wednesday, a grand jury hearing evidence in the Stormy Daniels case had yet to issue an in-dictment, and on Thursday Bragg’s office sent the committee chairmen a letter seen by Reuters.
The letter said the chairmen’s accusations “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene.”
It confirmed that Bragg’s office was “investigat-ing allegations that Donald Trump engaged in viola-tions of New York State penal law.”
If indicted, Trump would be the first U.S. presi-dent to face criminal charges in a court. He served as president from 2017-2021 and has mounted a third campaign for the White House while facing legal woes on several fronts.
The grand jury, made up of U.S. citizens residing in Manhattan, convened in January. A former fixer for Trump said he made the payment to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election at Trump’s direction.
Daniels, a well-known adult film actress and di-rector whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she received the money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.—AFP
