Ex-US president, Donald Trump has become the first to be impeached twice and first to face felony counts in the country’s political troubled water.
Israel Umoh
Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after an investigation into hush money paid to an adult film star in 2016.
He entered the plea after being placed under arrest at a federal courthouse in Manhattan, the culminating moment in a historic day that marked the first time a US president has ever been charged with a crime.
Mr Trump, who is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, has said the prosecution is politically motivated.
Wearing a dark blue suit and his signature red tie, Mr Trump, 76, held his fist in the air in a gesture to reporters as he departed Trump Tower for court.
As he was being driven to the lower Manhattan courthouse, he posted on social media that the experience was “surreal.”
Ex-President Donald Trump in the court
About an hour later, Mr Trump sat with his hands folded as he entered his plea, flanked by his lawyers.
“Not guilty,” Mr Trump said when asked how he pleaded.
The court, which has banned video coverage of the case, released a photograph of a glum-looking Mr Trump as he was being arraigned.
He planned to fly back to his home in Florida later on Tuesday to give an address in the evening.
Taken together, the charges carry a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison under New York law but an actual prison sentence, if he is convicted at a trial, would almost certainly be far less than that.
While falsifying business records in New York on its own is a misdemeanour punishable by no more than one year in prison, it is elevated to a felony punishable by up to four years in prison when done to advance or conceal another crime.
Thousands of pro- and anti-Trump supporters gathered outside the courthouse as helicopters swirled above.
Authorities were on the lookout for violence but no serious incidents were reported as the arraignment took place.
“I have been waiting for this moment for, like, over four years,” said Sarah O’Brien Rosenstein, who travelled from Pennsylvania.
“I just want justice to be served. I just don’t think that Trump is our man at all. You know the whole world collapsed when he was around and I would like to see a more peaceful world.”
Christine Goddard travelled from the Washington area to support Mr Trump.
Former US president Donald Trump appears in court at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York
“He is a good person for all,” she told The National. “The people who don’t like him are not for all.
Alan Gotlieb, who was dressed in an American flag jumper and wore a red Make American Great Again (Maga) hat, said he was at the courthouse to stand up for the US Constitution and for Mr Trump, to whom he referred as “our president”.
Mr Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, in November announced his campaign for the presidency in 2024 in a bid to deny Democratic President Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020, a second term in the White House.
The businessman-turned-politician has been a familiar figure for decades in New York, the city where he was raised, built his real estate business and became a celebrity.
But Manhattan is overwhelmingly liberal and Mr Trump is reviled by many in the borough. He argues his case should be heard in Staten Island, which went to Mr Trump by a large margin in 2020.
Mr Trump, who was impeached twice by the House of Representatives but was never convicted in the Senate, faces a series of other criminal investigations and lawsuits.
Potentially of most pressing legal peril for him after the Manhattan case is a probe into possible election interference in the southern state of Georgia.
Mr Trump’s arraignment came after a New York grand jury last week voted to indict him over his alleged involvement in a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair, in 2016.
He denied a sexual relationship but has acknowledged reimbursing his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen for the payment.
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to breaches of federal campaign finance law, including a payment made to Daniels, and was sentenced to three years in prison. He testified in the Manhattan investigation last month.
Any trial is at least more than a year away, legal experts say. Being indicted or even convicted does not legally prevent Mr Trump from running for president.
President Joe Biden, mindful that anything he might say could fuel Trump’s claim of a politically “weaponized” judicial system, is one of the few Democrats holding back over the indictment of his rival.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would “catch part of the news when he has a moment,” but insisted: “This is not something that’s a focus for him.”
Republicans meanwhile have largely rallied around Trump, including his rival in the party’s presidential primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who called the indictment “un-American.”
(AP)
