Trump sings praises of Manhattan grand jury: ‘I have gained such respect’
Ryan King
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Former President Donald Trump commended the special grand jury impaneled in the Manhattan district attorney’s inquiry revolving around him.
Multiple reports emerged that the panel plans to hold off this week on its decision of whether to indict Trump for charges pertaining to the alleged $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump lauded the panel’s seemingly meticulous approach and commitment not to be a “rubber stamp” for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
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“I have gained such respect for this grand jury, & perhaps even the grand jury system as a whole,” Trump wrote in all capitalization on his Truth Social account.
“The evidence is so overwhelming in my favor, & so ridiculously bad for the highly partisan & hateful district attorney, that the grand jury is saying, hold on, we are not a rubber stamp, which most grand juries are branded as being, we are not going to vote against a preponderance of evidence or against large numbers of legal scholars all saying there is no case here. Drop this sick witch hunt, now!”
Throughout the public frenzy over the looming grand jury decision, Trump has maintained his innocence, forcefully denying wrongdoing and decrying the investigation as a “witch hunt.” Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday of last week, but that prediction never came to fruition. His lawyer subsequently conceded he had no internal insights when he made that claim.
At issue is an alleged $130,000 payment that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted making to Daniels, also known as Stephanie Gregory Clifford, during the tail end of the 2016 campaign. The payment was made via a shell company in exchange for Daniels keeping mum about an alleged affair with Trump roughly a decade prior. Trump has also denied that affair.
Bragg’s office has been contemplating pairing a misdemeanor charge for falsification of documents with a campaign finance violation to achieve a felony charge, according to multiple reports.
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Many legal experts told the Washington Examiner that such a legal strategy is novel and largely untested.
The grand jury typically meets Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon, according to the New York Times. The panel is expected to take a previously scheduled hiatus next month, delaying the earliest window for an indictment of Trump to the end of April unless there’s a change of plans, Politico reported.