The latest attempt by Democrats to sink the Trump campaign
WASHINGTON - Former US president Trump could be indicted, he revealed it himself in a dramatic appeal on social media, and could also risk arrest. He could become the first former White House inmate this week to be formally indicted, if not arrested. The district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, would in fact be about to formalize the allegations in the context of an investigation that seemed to all intents and purposes closed a few years ago. The facts refer neither to the assault on the Congress building in January 2021 nor to the various financial crimes that Trump may have committed as an entrepreneur, but to the so-called Stormy Daniels case.
The legal case has all political implications and not only for Trump's attempt to exploit the possible indictment to generate enthusiasm around his recently launched electoral campaign. In essence, with the race for the White House just beginning, a prosecutor close to the Democratic Party is trying to dust off an episode that seemed forgotten and objectively negligible, producing a questionable legal case to bridle the former president in a proceeding capable of at least weaken him in the race for the Republican nomination.
The case at the center of the Manhattan prosecutor's investigation refers to the payment of 130,000 dollars to the aforementioned adult film actress shortly before the 2016 presidential elections, in order to buy her silence and avoid negative repercussions on the ongoing campaign. Stormy Daniels/Stephanie Clifford had already repeatedly tried to derive some gain from the sexual relationship that the two would have had in 2006, but without success. However, when, a few weeks after the vote, a video circulated in the US press in which Trump celebrated his successes with women by flaunting methods bordering on harassment, the actress and her lawyers felt the right time had come to proceed to collection.
Trump had thus instructed his lawyer and trusted man, Michael Cohen, to pay the money requested from Stormy Daniels/Stephanie Clifford out of his own pocket. Later, Cohen would have been reimbursed by Trump's electoral campaign organization, attributing the sum to unspecified "legal expenses". The hoax ultimately landed Trump's attorney in trouble, and Trump negotiated a three-year sentence for violating the campaign finance law. Michael Cohen himself is the key witness in the case involving the former president at the Manhattan prosecutor's office.
The fragility of today's prosecution against Trump can also be deduced from the fact that, years ago, both the Federal Electoral Commission and a federal prosecutor had concluded that there were no grounds for proceeding against the former president. Even the attempt to accuse Trump of having falsified commercial documents under New York state law does not seem viable, since it is a misdemeanor offense and therefore now time-barred.
According to news reported by the American press, Prosecutor Bragg is allegedly trying to circumvent this latter impediment by linking the forgery of documents to a more serious crime ("felony"), i.e. the violation of federal electoral law. In New York state, however, there appears to be no precedent of indictments on the basis of such an argument and it is therefore possible that the judge in charge of the case decides to deny the request of the district attorney. Other avenues for taking Trump to court cannot be ruled out, but Alvin Bragg's postponement of the decision, after an official announcement was expected on Tuesday, seems to confirm the difficulties in putting together a coherent case against Trump.
