Anne Toulouse (in the United States)
Before a judge in New York, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to orchestrating payments to cover up embarrassing deals for him ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican, who is seeking re-election, is targeted by 34 counts of accusation.
“I never imagined this possible in America,” Donald Trump said Tuesday evening, outraged after his formal indictment. In front of his supporters, in his Florida residence, the 76-year-old Republican called his indictment, detailed in 34 counts of falsification of accounting documents, an “insult to the nation”. Released free and without judicial control from his historic hearing, the billionaire should be tried next January. “The law is the same for everyone,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.
34 transactions, 34 counts
The indictment does not reveal much more than what was already known, i.e. Donald Trump is accused of forging handwriting to conceal payments to stifle compromising disclosures about his love life. There were 34 transactions, hence the 34 counts that follow disguised payments month after month.
How does this constitute a crime? Prosecutor Alvin Bragg explained that Donald Trump was complicit in electoral fraud by concealing facts that could have harmed his candidacy in 2016. He remained rather vague and the extent of the facts will only be known if there’s a trial in a few months.
Accused of having paid 30,000 dollars to a doorman of his building
Donald Trump escaped what would have been an explosive adventure. The judge could have demanded that he not comment in public, which would have anesthetized his campaign. He contented himself with asking him not to engage in incitement to violence.
Among the charges against Donald Trump, a payment of 30,000 dollars to buy the silence of a doorman of his New York building who claimed to have information on a child out of wedlock, or even 150,000 dollars to a woman who presented herself as a former mistress.