Donald Trump was arrested on April 4 after submitting to the district attorney’s office in New York City. With this shocking arrest, Trump becomes the first president in US history to face significant criminal charges.
This comes after a grand jury voted on March 30 to indict him, albeit the charges were first kept secret.
“This is an attack on our country as we’ve never seen before,” Trump stated in response to the grand jury vote. Though his timing was a little wrong, the 45th President of the United States anticipated his demise in a previous post on his controversial social media platform on March 18.
Trump’s allegations revolve around a $130,000 hush payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016. Daniels testified under oath that she was paid the money in exchange for signing an NDA that barred her from revealing her alleged romance with Trump in 2006, before the election.
Despite his attorney, Michael Cohen, testifying against him during his grand jury hearing on March 15, he has vehemently denied the affair and accusations that he instigated the payment. Trump, of course, had something to say about his arrest before entering the courtroom.
Donald Trump turned himself up at the district attorney’s office on April 4 before his arraignment hearing. Trump stated before entering the courtroom that the encounter seemed “OMG, they are going to ARREST ME,” he wrote on Truth Social. I can’t believe this is occurring in the United States. MAGA!”
Given Trump’s unusual arrest circumstances, it is unclear whether he will be treated differently. He will, however, have to go through the standard booking procedure, including fingerprinting, just like everyone else.
In pure Trump tradition, he was not going down quietly. On March 18, after announcing his impending detention, Trump sent a passionate rallying cry to his devoted supporters.
“Protest, take back our country!” he wrote on Truth Social. Other controversial Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and George Santos appeared to have joined his swaths of followers on the streets of New York City ahead of Trump’s arraignment.
These allegations are simply the tip of the iceberg in the former president’s laundry list of problems since he is the target of many ongoing criminal investigations, including one for encouraging the violence during the January 6 Capitol riots.