4/1/23

By Aditi Jha

A New York grand jury has officially indicted former President Trump. Indictment (uhn-dyte-mehnt) is when somebody gets charged with one or more crimes. Indictments happen when a prosecutor (the lawyer who started the court case and has to prove that the suspect is guilty of the crime they've been accused of) looks at information from an investigation and decides to show the information to an impartial group of citizens called a grand jury. Witnesses are called to testify and the jury is shown the evidence. After this, the jury votes on whether they think there's enough evidence to charge the suspect with the crime. In Trump's case, there was sufficient evidence to accuse him of a crime, and Trump was then indicted by the grand jury. The difference between an indictment and an arrest is that the indictment is an accusation, whereas the arrest would actually involve taking Trump into custody and would happen if Trump refused to surrender (voluntarily turn himself in). Trump has been charged with over 30 counts of business fraud, as well as an alleged hush money payment of $130,000 that Trump made to an actress named Stormy Daniels as an attempt to silence her from going public about his extramarital affair with her. Hush money payments aren't illegal, but falsifying business records is. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, had transferred the money to Daniels less than two weeks prior to the election. After Trump won, he reimbursed Cohen for it with money that included his personal checks. The Trump Organization noted that transaction as legal expenses, which was not true. Trump will also face another charge if those records were falsified to cover up the possible violation of campaign finance laws. The punishment for falsifying business records is one to four years in prison. His lawyers, Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, said that he "did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court." On Thursday, the former president released a statement saying "I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden. The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party - united and strong - will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" This is a historic moment; it's the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges. He can and is still planning to run for president in 2024, even though he has been indicted. It's unclear if he will surrender, so he may be arrested. Trump is also facing different legal woes, such as a case in Fulton County, Georgia, relating to his 2020 presidential campaign, a Justice Department investigation into his incitement of the January 6th insurrection, and a second DOJ investigation into several classified documents found at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. 

That's the news for today! Stay safe!