Is ex-US President Trump now behind bars?

In the past few days, the ex-president has been in a good mood towards visitors to Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump had convinced himself that the chief prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, would probably not indict him because of the hush money payments to the porn actress Stormy Daniels. Otherwise, he would probably have to get “golden handcuffs” for a former president, Trump joked.

Trump learned on Thursday that even an ex-president is not above the law. The news from New York also caught his team of advisors unprepared. Some lawyers had signed off on vacation because they expected a long hiatus in Bragg’s investigation, derided as a “zombie case.” But the grand jury recommended putting Trump on trial.

• ZIB 1 : Trump will be impeached

The ex-president now has an on-site appointment at the Manhattan Courthouse next Tuesday. The metropolis’ 36,000 police officers are on alert to prevent the expected spectacle from escalating into chaos. With horror, Trump followed the gauntlet of his chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, who tried to get into the courtroom undetected at dawn in 2021 through a back entrance.

Humiliation for narcissists Trump

He “can’t believe what they’re doing to an old man,” Trump complained at the time about Weisselberg’s treatment by the identification service, who, according to New York custom, appeared in front of the judge in handcuffs. The humiliation of being paraded is the worst thing for the narcissist. The accused will not be completely spared.

Although, given the historical nature of the first indictment against a former president in history, Bragg is willing to make exceptions. So he allowed the postponement of the demonstration to next week. The necessary coordination with the “Secret Service”, which also follows ex-presidents everywhere, proved to be hardly feasible in the short term. Trump doesn’t have to come through the main entrance either and may get around the handcuffs.

“But he will have to get his mugshot and give his fingerprints,” former Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz told viewers on MAGA’s Newsmax channel. “There’s no way around it.”

• ZIB 1: Langpaul (ORF) on the Trump charge

Trump: “Political Persecution”

Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said his client intends to volunteer. “He has committed no crimes and will fight these political charges in court.” The ex-president himself reacted rather meekly by his standards and made a typo in his excitement. Instead of “indicted” he wrote “INDICATED” in capital letters. “This is political persecution and electoral interference at the highest level in history.” Unlike nine days ago, Trump did not repeat his call for protests, which hardly anyone followed. But he renewed the anti-Semitic accusation that Bragg was a prosecutor handpicked and funded by Jewish billionaire George Soros. The reference to his skin color and the alleged remote control of the process by Soros was not lacking in many other Republican reactions.

Disguised payment

It is not yet known what kind of evidence Bragg will present. According to information leaked to the media, there are said to be 30 points, all of which have one fact: that the then-candidate on the home stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign coaxed Daniels not to discuss an affair after the birth of his son Barron with a veiled payment of $130,000 speak. Trump’s former house attorney Michael Cohen arranged the payment.

While his client moved into the White House, Cohen was behind bars. A federal court sentenced him to three years in prison in 2018. The fact that Trump, referred to as “Individual 1” in the proceedings, got off scot-free was thanks to Attorney General William Barr, who instructed federal prosecutors not to investigate a president. Now Trump is just a private person.