An indictment of former President Donald Trump related to hush-money payments made during his successful 2016 White House run is expected imminently, according to reports.
Former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who testified before a grand jury last week, said he expects the former president to be indicted “imminently,” and other sources have said it could come as soon as Friday.
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“Let’s all hope it’s sooner rather than later,” Cohen said on Thursday about the timing of the expected indictment. “Because everyone needs to be held accountable. Everyone needs to be held to the same standard of the law, and that includes former presidents.”
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to violating federal campaign finance law related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with the married Trump.
While the payment and non-disclosure agreement Daniels signed were not illegal, prosecutors argued that Cohen’s actions amounted to an in-kind campaign contribution. Prosecutors investigated whether Trump, who reimbursed Cohen for the payment, violated campaign finance rules by not reporting the payment as a campaign contribution, but declined to press charges against Trump at the time.
Trump has maintained his innocence in the matter, ranging from denying he ever had an affair with Daniels to saying the accusations are “VERY OLD & happened a long time ago, long past the very publicly known & accepted deadline for the Statute of Limitations.”
While there is some debate over whether the case has reached beyond the statute of limitations, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy is skeptical Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would bother pumping resources into an investigation he doesn’t believe he can prosecute.
“Since they do this stuff for a living, prosecutors are always conscious of the ticking clock and wouldn’t pour effort into a case that was clearly time-barred,” McCarthy wrote on Friday.
If Trump were to be indicted, it could complicate his campaign to get back to the White House in 2024, though he has pledged not to let an indictment stop him from running.
And there are concerns about how solid a criminal case Bragg could build, as the prosecutor considers bringing the first indictment of a former president in U.S. history. The legal case could hinge on whether Trump falsified business records by listing Cohen’s reimbursement payments to Daniels as legal expenses. Such a crime is a misdemeanor in New York but could be enhanced to a felony if Bragg’s office argues the fraud was intended to conceal a second crime.
Former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, in his new book, warned that Bragg’s pursuing the novel theory could backfire, saying there is “a big risk that felony charges would be dismissed before a jury could even consider them.”