Multiple US news outlets, quoting sources, are reporting the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is arranging a meeting with law enforcement agencies ahead of a potential indictment of former President Donald Trump next week..FOX News reports, according to its court source, “... the meeting was requested Thursday and hasn't been set. The meeting is to ‘discuss logistics for some time next week, which would mean that they are anticipating an indictment next week.’".NBC News says, “Law enforcement agencies are conducting preliminary security assessments, and are discussing potential security plans in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court, in case Trump is charged in connection with an alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and travels to New York to face any charges.”.The network says its sources include “five senior officials familiar with the preparations” who also say “the agencies involved include the NYPD, New York State Court Officers, the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.”.Both Fox and NBC report all conversations and preparations are cautionary, pending charges being laid, saying no charges have been laid..Each network reached out to authorities for confirmation, but all have refused to comment..Daniels, an adult film star, previously said she received US$130,000 as hush money during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep her quiet about sleeping with Trump, which Trump has repeatedly denied..Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, maintained Trump told him to give the money to Daniels and said it was for the “principal purpose of influencing” the 2016 presidential election. .“Cohen was later repaid the money he’d shelled out to Daniels through payments that were listed by Trump’s company as ‘legal fees,”’ reports NBC. .Trump is being investigated for felony falsification of business records..Intelligencer says an indictment would not necessarily impede Trump’s run for president in 2024..“Normally, you’d guess that a criminal indictment would be an instant disqualifier for a presidential candidate. But now that a Trump indictment seems likely in the days ahead, with additional charges from different prosecutors involving separate incidents of alleged criminal misconduct looming, Trump seems poised to break yet another norm,” reports Intelligencer..“Even if Trump is marched into prison in leg-irons, an extremely unlikely possibility, he can’t be barred from running for reelection, unless he strikes some sort of plea deal that includes foreswearing public office.”.ABC News recently reported, “The US Constitution does not list the absence of a criminal record as a qualification for the presidency. It says only that natural born citizens who are at least 35 years old and have been a resident of the U.S. for 14 years can run for president.”.There is precedent of a presidential candidate receiving votes while incarcerated..In 1920, Eugene V. Debs won 913,693 voted while locked up in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on sedition charges regarding his opposition to the US joining the fighting in the First World War..The winner of the presidency that year, Warren G. Harding, commuted Debs sentence.
