Donald Trump entered a courthouse in Manhattan on Tuesday for the first-ever criminal arraignment of a former U.S. president regarding the hush payment to a well known porn star.
He left for the courthouse from Trump Tower after noon. Before reaching to court he was waving to cameras. He departed in a motorcade for arrest and arraignment. Trump flew to New York on Monday from his Florida residence.
He was indicted Thursday on charges related to a hush money payment his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office had not unsealed a grand jury indictment, which contains details of the charges against Trump, by the time the ex-president arrived to court Tuesday.
Trump is due to appear before acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan at 2:15 p.m. ET. News outlets pushed for the judge to allow camera access during the hearing, an effort Trump’s lawyers have opposed and which Merchan denied.
Bragg will hold a news conference following the arraignment. The ex-president, meanwhile, plans to travel back to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after the hearing and deliver remarks there.
Trump denies the claim by Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, that she had sex with him one time in 2006. He also denies wrongdoing related to the $130,000 payment Cohen gave her to keep quiet about the alleged tryst.
Trump lost an appeal to block multiple former White House aides, including chief of staff Mark Meadows, from testifying to a federal grand jury investigating his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, NBC News reported.
In late March, a federal district court judge ruled that the aides would have to testify. In addition to Meadows, they included former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, former national security advisor Robert O’Brien, former senior aide Stephen Miller, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, former assistant Nick Luna and former White House Presidential Personnel Office director John McEntee.
