NEW YORK
\nFormer U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he expects to be arrested on Tuesday as prosecutors consider charges over a hush money payment to a porn star, and called on his supporters to protest.
\nA spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office, which has been investigating a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, declined to comment.
\nNo U.S. president – while in office or afterward – has faced criminal charges. Trump is seeking the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024. He has said he will continue campaigning even if he is charged with a crime.
\n\u201cIllegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office … indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven … the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.
\n\u201cProtest, take our nation back!\u201d said Trump, whose supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.
\nTrump did not say he had been formally notified of forthcoming charges and provided no evidence of leaks from the district attorney\u2019s office. He did not discuss the possible charges in the post.
\nA Trump spokesperson said in a statement to reporters that, \u201cThere has been no notification,\u201d beyond leaks to the media.
\nManhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s office has been presenting evidence to a grand jury about a $130,000 hush money payment that Michael Cohen, Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer, made to Daniels in the waning days of Trump\u2019s 2016 election campaign, sources have said.
\nDaniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the affair happened.
\nBragg\u2019s office earlier this month invited Trump to testify before the grand jury probing the payment, which legal experts said was a sign that an indictment was close. Trump declined the offer, a person familiar with the matter said.
\nCohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations tied to his arranging payments to Daniels and another woman in exchange for their silence about affairs they said they\u2019d had with Trump, among other crimes. He has said Trump directed him to make the payments. The U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in Manhattan did not charge Trump with a crime.
\nLEGAL WOES
\nAn additional witness is expected to appear before the grand jury on Monday, at the request of Trump\u2019s lawyers, the person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.
\nTrump\u2019s statement that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday is based on news reports that Bragg\u2019s office is going to be meeting with law enforcement to prepare for a possible indictment, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
\nThe probe is one of several legal woes Trump faces as he seeks the Republican nomination for the presidency.
\nTrump is also confronting a state-level criminal probe in Georgia over efforts to overturn the 2020 results in that state.
\nA special counsel named by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is currently investigating Trump\u2019s handling of classified government documents after leaving office, as well as his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
\nBragg\u2019s office last year won the conviction of the Trump Organization on tax fraud charges. But Bragg declined to charge Trump himself with financial crimes related to his business practices, prompting two prosecutors who worked on the probe to resign.
\nTrump leads his early rivals for his party\u2019s nomination, holding the support of 43% of Republicans in a February Reuters\/Ipsos poll, compared with 31% for his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not yet announced his candidacy.
\nTrump in 2018 initially disputed knowing anything about the payment to Daniels. He later acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the payment, which he called a \u201csimple private transaction.\u201d
\nCohen, who served time in prison after pleading guilty, testified before the grand jury this week. Grand jury proceedings are not public. Outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan, he told reporters he did not testify out of a desire for revenge against Trump.
\n\u201cThis is all about accountability,\u201d he said. \u201cHe needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds.\u201d
\nDaniels\u2019 lawyer said she spoke with prosecutors last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he expects to be arrested on Tuesday as prosecutors consider charges over a hush money payment to a porn star, and called on his supporters to protest. A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office, which has been investigating a $130,000 payment to porn actor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-320361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n