Former President Donald Trump was not arrested on Tuesday, as he predicted he would late last week, as reports say the Manhattan district attorney's office pursuing the case against Trump has not finished calling witnesses..Newsmax reports, “A law enforcement source told Fox News Monday that authorities do not expect former President Donald Trump to face arraignment until next week as a Manhattan grand jury, which has been meeting secretly over allegations of hush money paid to a porn start to silence claims of an affair with Trump years ago, apparently has another witness on Wednesday.”.The grand jury is investigating allegations Trump gave his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, US$130,000 in hush money to give to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about a supposed sexual encounter with Trump several years before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denies Daniel’s allegation..Cohen gave Daniels the money through a shell company and was then reimbursed by the Trump Organization, which it called legal expenses..On Monday, Robert Costello, a lawyer identified as an ally of Trump, spoke to a New York grand jury after he said he had questions about Cohen ‘s credibility..The New York Times said Costello, a former legal adviser to Cohen, said in his testimony, “I told the grand jury that this guy (Cohen) couldn’t tell the truth if you put a gun to his head.”.“The matter has previously failed to gain any traction with either federal prosecutors or the Federal Election Commission. Trump and his allies, who've branded the entire matter a witch hunt, have alleged that the Manhattan DA is acting out of political motives, and specifically with the intent to damage Trump's plans to seek reelection to the White House in 2024,” reports Newsmax..Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attacked the District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, in a news conference on Monday..“The Manhattan District Attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor and so he, like other Soros funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” DeSantis said..“He has downgraded over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors, he says he doesn’t even want to have jail time for the vast majorities of crimes.”.“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence, but if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.”.“These Soros district attorneys are a menace to society,” said DeSantis, adding he will not get involved in what he calls a political spectacle and will focus on Florida..Trump’s personal lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt it appears the Manhattan DA office will arrest Trump, soon and parade him in public in handcuffs, with Schmitt offering some agreement.."I had this idea in my head that they'd be dumb enough, if he were indicted, to actually try to cuff him and walk him. And then we can see how far we've really devolved in this country," Schmitt suggested to Tacopina on Monday..Even if tried and convicted 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 votes while locked up in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on sedition charges regarding his opposition to the US joining the fighting in World War I..The winner of the presidency that year, Warren G. Harding, commuted Debs’ sentence.
