Newsman: Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court Tuesday afternoon.
The former president Donald Trump surrendered and was placed under arrest Tuesday before he was arraigned. The former president heard the charges against him for the first time in a historic and unprecedented court appearance.
Trump responded to the judge when directed to do so during the arraignment and made the not guilty plea himself.
The next in-person hearing date for Trump’s case in New York is currently set for December 4.
Donald Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” according to the charging documents.
Trump flew back to Florida after his court appearance Tuesday and proclaimed that he is being unjustly persecuted through prosecution later in the evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Speaking for less than 30 minutes Donald Trump said,
“They can’t beat us at the ballot box, so they try to beat us through the law,” Trump, the first former president ever charged with a crime.
“We are a nation in decline, and now these radical left lunatics want to interfere in elections by using law enforcement,” Trump said, tying his prosecution and the multiple investigations he faces to his false claims of a rigged election in 2020. “We can’t let that happen.”
While he was warned by Judge Juan Merchan during Tuesday’s arraignment not to make comments that could “jeopardize the rule of law” or create civil unrest, Trump railed that evening against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge himself.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America, never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said.
Trump was with his supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort event.
Trump made his public case against the indictment and previewed how he intends to fight against the charges politically as he runs again for the White House in 2024.
“It’s an insult to our country,” he added
Prosecutors alleged that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs.
Donald Trump was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including an illegal payment of $130,000 that was ordered by the defendant to suppress the negative information that would hurt his campaign, prosecutors alleged.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said at a news conference after the arraignment that the indictment did not specify what laws Trump broke because “the law does not so require.”
Bragg highlighted one law that Trump allegedly broke during the conference: “New York state election law – what makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.” He also mentioned violations of a federal election law capping contribution limits.
The evidence, Bragg said, will be “borne out in a public courtroom in downtown Manhattan,” he said.
In addition to the indictment, a 13-page “statement of facts” detailed in plain language how Trump allegedly committed crimes to help him get elected to the White House in 2016.
“From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” the statement of facts says. Prosecutors described a “catch and kill scheme” to suppress negative stories about Trump – “in furtherance of his candidacy for President.”
Each criminal charge Trump is facing relates to a specific entry among the business records of the Trump Organization, according to the indictment.
The Manhattan prosecutors accuse Trump of repeatedly causing false entries in the business records.
A judge said Monday night that news outlets were not allowed to broadcast the proceedings, rejecting a request from several media organizations
