Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg said on Tuesday (April 4) that he would not allow Donald Trump to get away with lawbreaking after charging the former United States president with a string of felonies over hush money payments. “These are felony crimes in New York State. No matter who you are we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct,” Bragg told reporters, the news agency AFP reported.
“We today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law,” Bragg added.
Donald Trump, 76, has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from three pre-election hush-money cases.
In a statement, Alvin Bragg said, “Donald J. 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.”
Bragg said that Trump arranged for the payment of $130,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about a 2006 sexual encounter.
A payment of $30,000 was made through an intermediary to a former Trump Tower doorman who was claiming that the former president had fathered a child out of wedlock, Bragg said.
And the third and final case involved a woman who received $150,000 from a US tabloid in exchange for not speaking about a sexual relationship she allegedly had with Trump.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts as he became the first American president to be arrested on criminal charges. “Not guilty,” Trump said in a clear voice inside the Manhattan courtroom.
The former president was released from custody without any pre-trial restrictions at the arraignment. Judge Juan Merchan said during the hearing that a trial could potentially start in January 2024, although Trump’s lawyers indicated they would rather push it back to the spring.
(With inputs from agencies)
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