Former President Donald Trump pleaded innocent Tuesday to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The one-term commander-in-chief entered the plea during an unprecedented and extraordinary hour-long Manhattan court proceeding. Trump, in his trademark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, remained uncharacteristically quiet inside the courtroom and out, uttering just two words.
“Not guilty,” the native New Yorker responded when asked for a plea to the charges.
He entered and departed the state Supreme Court hearing without speaking to the media and listened in silence during the proceeding.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a target of Trump’s venom during the probe, attended the hearing. The ex-president described the prosecutor as an “animal” in one of his social media postings.
“The People of the State of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” Bragg said afterward in a statement.
And Acting Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan asked Trump to “please refrain from damning statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”
A grand jury investigating Trump indicted him March 30, making him the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges.
The charges against Trump had remained under seal until Tuesday’s court appearance .
The hearing followed days of anticipation, during which Trump repeatedly blasted Bragg and the presiding judge in the case, Juan Merchan. Earlier Tuesday, Trump posted to the social media site, Truth Social, that he could not get a fair trial in Manhattan and suggested the trial be moved to the far more conservative Staten Island.
Outside the courthouse, several hundred protesters both for and against Trump gathered in boisterous but largely peaceful demonstrations, including a pro-Trump rally organized by right-wing U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. New York Mayor Adams had warned Greene and others to “be on your best behavior.”
The arraignment followed his surrender at Bragg’s office at around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The historic charges against Trump are the result of an extensive investigation by the Manhattan DA spanning more than four years.
It remains unclear — and widely debated — how Trump’s arrest will affect the 2024 presidential campaign. So far, news of the indictment has helped rally support around Trump and proven a boon to political fundraising.
The DA’s office long-running probe of Trump twice made it to the U.S. Supreme Court — with former Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance obtaining Trump’s taxes — and spun off two criminal tax fraud cases against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.
The hush money deals have long been public knowledge. Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen went to federal prison for paying off Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election, detailing in his plea how he made the payment at Trump’s direction “for the principal purpose” of influencing the election.
The feds first investigated the hush money payments — bringing the case against Cohen under Trump’s Justice Department — and initially asked the Manhattan DA to hold off on probing the president.
Federal prosecutors directly implicated Trump in their case, in which he was notoriously referred to as “Individual 1,” but ultimately declined to bring charges against him once he’d left the White House, reportedly fearing the case would devolve into a political firestorm and pale in comparison to what Trump was accused of in relation to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Cohen, who’s expected to be the trial’s star witness, testified twice before the grand jury that handed up the indictment against Trump last Thursday. He started cooperating in the underlying investigation about four years ago when he was serving time for carrying out Trump’s dirty work.
The grand jury also heard from David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., who received federal immunity in Cohen’s case. The feds detailed how he brokered the deal with Daniels and made another with McDougal.
Prosecutors have continued to try to flip Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s jailed finance chief who was convicted alongside the company in 2022, threatening him with insurance fraud. The News reported last week that Trump’s company sought to have his lawyer, Nick Gravante, swapped out, fearing Gravante would put his client’s interests over Trump’s.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
MORE ON TRUMP’S HISTORIC ARRAIGNMENT:
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Photos: Protesters gather outside of Trump Tower after historic indictment
Trump calls for his criminal case to be moved from Manhattan to Staten Island: ‘VERY UNFAIR!’
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