Former President Donald Trump will not be handcuffed when he appears before a New York judge next week to face charges under a deal reached between his defense attorneys and Manhattan prosecutors, defense attorney Joe Tacopina said on Friday, Reuters reported.

Tacopina said in an interview that he expected Trump to be arrested on Tuesday, when the former president is scheduled to appear in court in New York to be formally notified of his charges after a grand jury indicted him on the pornography charges. star Stormi Daniels during the 2016 Trump campaign.

“I don’t know how this is going to play out. There is no playbook on how to try a former president of the United States in a criminal court,” Tacopina said.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office could not be reached for comment on Tacopina’s comments.

Tacopina said Trump and his legal team were surprised by the news of the allegations: “At first, we were all shocked. I didn’t think they would go for it because there is no crime here.”

Trump pleads “not guilty”

A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Donald Trump in an investigation into money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence, becoming the first former US president to face criminal charges even as he makes a fresh bid for the White House.

In 2018, a New York judge opened an investigation into a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election to cover up Donald Trump’s alleged extramarital affair.

The amount was not reported on the Republican candidate’s campaign returns, in violation of election law, and was recorded as “legal fees” in the accounts of his New York company.

“He will be photographed, fingerprinted, and Trump will be brought before a judge who will ask him how he is going to plead: he will definitely say ‘not guilty,'” explains Carl Tobias, a law professor. at the University of Richmond, Virginia.

Three scenarios

Donald Trump’s lawyers are likely to engage in legal guerilla warfare to try to overturn the charges. If they don’t, the normal course of justice involves three post-indictment scenarios:

• charges may be dropped. This is a relatively common occurrence and may be particularly relevant to the arrival of a new prosecutor, but unlikely in the case of Donald Trump.
• the accused may enter into a plea deal with the prosecution and agree to plead guilty to avoid trial and receive a lighter sentence. That’s even less likely since Donald Trump keeps repeating that he did nothing wrong.
• the judiciary organizes a trial, but first has to go through several procedures with various preliminary hearings. Again, it’s likely that Donald Trump’s lawyers will use whatever leverage they can to push back the deadline.

Does this prevent Trump from running for a second term?

Absolutely not. In the United States, a person charged with or convicted of a crime can run for and be elected to any office. The Constitution provides only one exception to the exercise of official powers: engaging in “insurrection” against the United States.

Donald Trump, who participated in the presidential election last November 2024, is the subject of a federal investigation for his involvement in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, but at this stage no charges have been brought against him.

Read also:

• Donald Trump has been impeached – the first for a former US president
• Trump after the accusation: political persecution! /The prosecutor is financed by Soros/ This witch hunt will turn against Biden
• Who Is Stormy Daniels, Trump’s Impeached Former Adult Film Star

• Donald Trump has been impeached – the first for a former US president
• Trump after the accusation: political persecution! /The prosecutor is financed by Soros/ This witch hunt will turn against Biden
• Who Is Stormy Daniels, Trump’s Impeached Former Adult Film Star