The indictment of former president Donald Trump is only the first of what will be an unknown number, but a lot of legal maneuvers by Trump’s defence team and the Manhattan District Attorney’s (MDA) office could take upwards of 18 months to resolve, possibly landing on the doorstep of the 2024 presidential election.. Trump indictment .Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, which the MDA in a press release, said Trump allegedly “deployed ‘catch and kill’ schemes before and after the 2016 presidential election to bury allegations of three affairs, then ‘went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity,’” reports Forbes..Those ‘dozens of false entries’ comprise the 34 counts against Trump, all misdemeanors. By filing the charges ‘in the first degree’ the MDA left the door open to elevate the charges, based on its allegations Trump was involved in attempting to defraud or conceal other crimes related to the 34 counts, “a distinction,” reports Forbes, “that legal experts said would allow the MDA to elevate the misdemeanour charges of falsifying business records to felonies.”.If all 34 counts are elevated to felonies, Trump, if found guilty, would face a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison..READ MORE Former president Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony counts.The MDA press release highlighted a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to stop her from talking about a 2006 affair she says she had with Trump, which he denies..“Many of the indictment’s charges focus on invoices to reimburse ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who paid off Daniels,” according to Forbes..Other allegations against Trump in the MDA’s statement of facts, the legal document at the heart of the case, are the Trump Organization paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman to keep him quiet about the doorman’s claim that Trump had a child out of wedlock..In the statement of facts, the MDA also alleges the Trump Organization “attempted to reimburse American Media Inc., which, at the time, owned the National Enquirer, whose former publisher was a long-time friend of Trump’s, for a $150,000 payment it made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal in exchange for the rights to her story about her alleged affair with Trump, which the tabloid never published, known as ‘catch and kill,’” reports Forbes..READ MORE Trump delivered fiery Mar-a-Lago speech after arraignment.Even before the charges were made public, and especially after, commentators on both sides of the political aisle in the US viewed the MDA’s case as being on shaky legal grounds because the MDA will need to prove Trump was aware of the deal with Daniels and that he actually participated in orchestrating the allegedly fraudulent payment contracts..“Elevating the charges to a felony introduced another uncertain legal question since the secondary charge was expected to stem from a federal violation of campaign finance laws, while the MDA’s case against Trump is at the state level,” reports Forbes, adding “Manhattan criminal cases typically take at least a year to go to trial, meaning it could commence at the tail end of the 2024 presidential campaign or after Trump’s potential re-election to the White House.” Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union that he anticipated making a motion to dismiss the case.
