Former President Donald Trump will be indicted on Wednesday and asked to surrender for arraignment in New York next week, according to a new report.
âThere will be no arraignment this week,â an unnamed source, said to be familiar with the proceeding, told the Daily Mail on Tuesday.
The Mail reports that âthe former president, who is currently in Florida, is expected to be formally charged tomorrow, after which the Manhattan District Attorneyâs office will reach out to Trump and his Secret Service detail to make arrangements for his surrender.â
After being flown to New York, he will be fingerprinted, arrested, and a mug shot will be taken.
On Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggâs office responded to a letter sent by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan demanding that he testify before Congress about his âunprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.â The prosecutorâs office said that they will not be âintimidatedâ out of filing charges.
âWe will not be intimidated by attempts to undermine the justice process, nor will we let baseless accusations deter us from fairly applying the law,â a spokesperson for Braggâs office told Fox News on Tuesday.
âIn every prosecution, we follow the law without fear or favor to uncover the truth. Our skilled, honest and dedicated lawyers remain hard at work,â the spokesperson added.
On Monday, Jordan had sent a letter to Braggâs office saying, âin light of the serious consequences of your actions, we expect that you will testify about what plainly appears to be a politically motivated prosecutorial decision.â
âDear Mr. Bragg,â the letter began. âYou are about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office. This indictment comes after years of your office searching for a basis â any basis â on which to bring charges, ultimately settling on a novel legal theory untested anywhere in the country and one that federal authorities declined to pursue. If these reports are accurate, your actions will erode confidence in the evenhanded application of justice and unalterably interfere in the court of the 2024 presidential election.â
The possible indictment stems from an alleged $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 over an alleged sexual encounter that the two had in 2006. His former attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to charges over the payment in 2018 and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Jordan noted that by July 2019, federal prosecutors determined that no additional people would be charged alongside Cohen.
âNow, in the words of one legal scholar, you are attempting to âshoehornâ the same case with identical facts into a new prosecution, resurrecting a so-called âzombieâ case against President Trump,â the letter said. âEven the Washington Post quoted âlegal expertsâ as calling your actions âunusualâ because âprosecutors have repeatedly examined the long-established details but decided not to pursue charges.â
Trump has called for protests in the event of his arrest.