Former US president Donald Trump will be arraigned before New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan next Tuesday, his lawyer Susan Necheles told AFP.
“We do expect the arraignment to occur on Tuesday,” Necheles said in an email, without elaborating.
At the arraignment, he will be presented with the charges he is facing. The judge will then decide whether he should be released on bail or taken into custody.
CNN reported that the 76-year-old Republican faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump was charged for hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, making him the first-ever serving or former US president to face criminal charges
Meanwhile, hours after the Manhattan jury announced his indictment, Trump called the jury’s decision to indict him “political persecution and election interference at the highest level.”
In a lengthy statement on his Truth Social platform, Trump blamed the left saying that they are ‘destroying the Make America Great Again movement’.
“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump’, but now they’ve done the unthinkable — indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,” Trump said.
He accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on.”
An attorney for Trump, Alina Habba, called the former president a victim “of a corrupt and distorted version of the American justice system and history. He will be vindicated.”
Trump to pay his defence with 2024 fundraising drive
According to the Reuters news agency, Trump plans to pay his legal defence with the 2024 presidential fundraising drive.
Even before the news of the indictment broke out, the Trump campaign had said that it had raised $2 million in grassroots donations roughly in the week after March 18, when Trump said he was facing arrest in the hush money investigation.
“Please make a contribution – of truly any amount – to defend our movement from the never-ending witch hunts and WIN the WHITE HOUSE in 2024,” said an email sent by a Trump fundraising group called the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.
(With inputs from agencies)
