What to know about Trump’s arraignment
- Former President Donald Trump surrendered to authorities and was arraigned yesterday in Manhattan.
- Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his alleged role in hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign to two women who claim to have had affairs with him. It's the first time a former president has had to plead to criminal charges.
- Chaos reigned outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse as protesters, both for and against Trump, and the media flooded the area, prompting Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and George Santos, R-N.Y., to make only brief appearances.
- In a speech last night at Mar-a-Lago, Trump lashed out at the investigations he faces.
Mexico’s president calls charges against Trump political
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president said today he opposes the criminal charges filed against Trump, suggesting they were brought for political reasons during an electoral campaign.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the charges filed in New York against Trump, who is campaigning to regain the presidency in the 2024 election, represented “the degradation of due respect for the law.”
“I don’t agree with what they are doing to former President Trump,” López Obrador said at his morning news briefing. “I do not know if crimes were committed; it’s not my place.”
“Supposedly legal, judicial issues should not be used for political, electoral purposes,” he said. “Don’t make up crimes to affect adversaries.”
Asa Hutchinson says Trump's call to defund the FBI is 'ludicrous'
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his White House bid this week, rebutted Trump's call to defund federal law enforcement, saying it would be "ludicrous" to do so.
"Defunding the FBI as retaliation for an unfounded state prosecution is ludicrous," Hutchinson, a Republican, wrote on Twitter. "We should reform but not defund the agency that is on the frontline fighting terrorism."
Analysis: What could kill the ‘zombie’ case against Trump again?
Money, alleged affairs and a presidential election.
It’s a story that has all the hallmarks of a case with instant jury appeal for prosecutors. Given the facts, it’s easy to understand why the “zombie” case, as it has been referred to within the Manhattan district attorney’s office in the past, was resurrected more than once. But now that the grand jury’s indictment of Trump has been made public, the legal underpinning of the case could come back to haunt the DA’s office.
The likelihood of prosecutors’ bringing a charge of falsifying of business records was well reported. But the falsification of business records alone isn’t enough — the falsification needed to be done intending to conceal another crime to elevate what’s typically a misdemeanor state charge to a felony.
In court yesterday, prosecutor Chris Conroy offered a succinct theory of the case: “The defendant, Donald J. Trump, falsified New York business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and other violations of Election Laws.”
McCarthy calls Trump's indictment political, says it 'hurts the entire nation'
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said today that the hush money case involving Trump makes him "very sad and concerned" for the country, suggesting the indictment was politically driven.
"My fear is what’s going to transpire here is that here we are as America, one of our greatest strengths is the rule of law being applied equally. What’s going to deter some small DA in a small town in a red state to go after a Democratic president?" McCarthy told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview.
"I don’t think any legal mind sits and thinks this has merit," McCarthy said of the indictment.
Asked whether he believed the indictment and Trump's involvement in other investigations would hurt Trump in the general election if he becomes the GOP nominee for president, McCarthy did not respond directly but instead suggested that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg wanted to "play" with indictments in a way that he said "hurts the entire nation."
"It doesn’t matter what party you’re in. When someone uses the rule of law for political purposes, America looks weaker," McCarthy said.
He added that he would hope to take a similarly strong stance in speaking up "if someone would use this for political purposes" against a Democratic candidate.
Exonerated Central Park 5 member mocks Trump with ad of his own after indictment
Exonerated Central Park Five member Yusef Salaam issued a statement on social media mimicking a full-page ad that Trump issued 34 years ago that has become a flashpoint in Trump’s political rise.
Salaam’s open letter refers to an ad Trump placed in several New York newspapers in 1989, calling for the state to bring back the death penalty and strengthen policing in the city after the brutal beating and rape of a female jogger in Central Park.
Salaam and four friends, known as the Central Park Five, were falsely accused of the crime and imprisoned.
“Over 30 years ago, Donald Trump took out full page ads calling for my execution,” Salaam tweeted. “On the day he was arrested and arraigned, here is my ad in response.”
White House says it condemns 'any type of attacks on any judge'
At today's White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration condemns “any type of attacks on any judge.”
Jean-Pierre declined to comment directly on Trump's case but said that "more broadly" such attacks were unacceptable.
"I’m not going to speak to the case, specifically, but that is something that we definitely condemn," she said.
Trump blasted Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over his case, both online and in a speech at Mar-a-Lago last night.
Haley raises $11 million in first quarter of GOP presidential bid
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign pulled in $11 million in the first six weeks of her bid, her campaign announced today.
Haley’s campaign says it ended March with $7.8 million on hand, with her home state of South Carolina, Florida and Texas the top three fundraising states.
In a statement, campaign manager Betsy Ankney said Haley’s fundraising and retail campaigning make her “a force to be reckoned with.”
