Awaiting indictment in porn star payoff

The New York City grand jury that is weighing whether to criminally charge Trump is set to resume work Thursday after an unexpected day off.

The grand jury has been hearing testimony from witnesses since January on a hush money payment porn star Stormy Daniels received shortly before the 2016 presidential election from Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer at that time.

Trump ally Robert Costello said he believes his testimony trying to discredit Michael Cohen to a grand jury earlier this week led the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to tell that panel’s members to take the day off.

He said prosecutors must now decide whether they want to rely on Cohen’s testimony in seeking an indictment against Trump. The case rests on whether the Trump Organization improperly classified a payment to Cohen as a legal expense. It was a reimbursement for a $130,000 check he gave porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to stay quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.

“Unless Bragg and prosecutors are motivated by political prejudice, I think the DA now has to call a time out and decide if they can go forward with this case and this witness,” Costello, an attorney who previously acted as Cohen’s legal advisor, told NBC News.

“If the prosecutors are reasonable and honest, based on my testimony and press conference comments, they should be having second thoughts about moving forward,” he said. “I think I threw a wrench in their monkey works.”

Costello told reporters after his testimony Monday that Cohen “on his own” made a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

“He is totally unreliable,” Costello said of Cohen, who has said under oath that he paid Daniels at the behest of Trump.

Cohen on Monday night had scoffed at Costello’s claims, telling MSNB host Ari Melber, “So many things he said were untrue.”

NBC reported that prosecutors from Bragg’s office were very upset about Cohen’s interview and that they contacted his lawyer, Lanny Davis, to have him tell Cohen he should not appear on TV anymore.

— Dan Mangan

As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg inches closer to bringing a possible indictment against Trump, Republicans have launched a barrage of attacks against the Democratic district attorney and his alleged ties to billionaire, Democratic donor George Soros.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and the party’s fourth-ranking leader in the House, tweeted Monday that Bragg “took one million dollars from George Soros.” Sen. J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican whose 2022 campaign received millions of dollars in support from GOP megadonor and investor Peter Thiel, said in a tweet that “Alvin Bragg is bought by George Soros.”

But the reality of Bragg’s links to Soros don’t entirely match the picture painted by Republican lawmakers, who are trying to draw a link between the men to discredit the probe, according to records and people familiar with both men.

A Soros advisor, who declined to be named to speak openly about private matters, said the billionaire “has never met or spoken to Alvin Bragg.”

Read the full story here: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s ties to billionaire George Soros are not as close as Republicans claim

— Brian Schwartz

The possible indictment of Trump by the Manhattan district attorney may not directly boost the Republican former president’s 2024 White House bid, but it could unite GOP voters in outrage, a Republican strategist told CNBC.

While it’s unknown which specific charges are being considered by the Manhattan grand jury, some expect that DA Alvin Bragg is pursuing a case against Trump built on a charge of falsification of business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

To Republicans who see that as merely a misreported campaign contribution from nearly seven years ago, Bragg’s probe looks like “nothing more than a partisan hack job,” said Brad Todd, co-founder of OnMessage Public Strategies.

“Republicans are going to be enraged” if Trump is indicted on those grounds, he said. “That’s going to offend even Trump’s biggest critics in the Republican Party.”

“I don’t think it makes him more likely to be the nominee,” Todd said of possible charges against Trump. But it “adds ammunition to his case that the Democrats are willing to break any norm to try to undo the 2016 election,” he said.

That dynamic also helps explain why many of Trump’s could-be Republican presidential challengers, most of whom are far behind him in polls of the primary race, have responded to the news of a possible indictment by attacking Bragg.

“100% of the Republican primary electorate is opposed to Bragg abusing the legal system,” Todd said. “There’s not a Republican who’s for Alvin Bragg.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is being eyed as a possible 2024 presidential contender, became the latest Republican to lash out at the Manhattan prosecutor investigating Trump.

“Here’s what we know about District Attorney Bragg,” Scott said in a local radio interview, NBC News reported. “He does not want to lock anybody up as it relates to violent criminals. He’s the guy that wants no jails. The only thing he wants to do is weaponize the law against his political enemies.”

“President Trump is a victim of that,” Scott said. “This is a travesty and it should not be happening, especially in the greatest country on Earth.”

Scott also noted that he has been traveling on his “Faith in America Tour,” which has already taken him to the key primary state of Iowa and is bringing him to New Hampshire next month, according to Politico. Scott’s fellow South Carolina Republican, Nikki Haley, launched her own presidential bid last month.

— Kevin Breuninger

The Trump grand jury has been given the day off, and told by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to stay by to possibly reconvene Thursday, WNBC reported.

The grand jury, which has been hearing testimony since January, had been expected to convene after having Tuesday off.

The reason for the surprise day off was unclear.

But it means that a potential indictment against Trump is not going to be issued by the panel until Thursday at the earliest. Trump said last weekend that he expected to be arrested this week in the case.

Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina had no immediate comment on the news, which was first reported by Business Insider.

On Monday, the panel heard testimony from a Trump ally, Robert Costello, about his past dealings with Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, the key witness in the criminal probe of the ex-president.

— Dan Mangan

Trump’s criminal defense attorney Joseph Tacopina said there is no conflict of interest related to his law office’s past contact with Stormy Daniels that would force him to step out of the case if the former president is indicted.

A lawyer for the porn star Daniels says Tacopina met with her in February 2018 about a non-disclosure agreement she signed that supposedly barred her from discussing an alleged sexual tryst with Trump.

Daniels’ lawyer, Clark Brewster, has sent the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office emails and communications between Daniels and Tacopina’s New York law firm from that time, NBC News reported.

A conflict of interest is created “when a lawyer has a confidential communication with a potential client and she discloses information that is extensive and with the belief that it is confidential and that lawyer goes to represent” a potential opponent, Brewster said, according to NBC.

CNN first reported Brewster’s contact with the DA over Tacopina’s alleged communications with Daniels.

Tacopina told CNBC that he “never met with her, never spoke with her.” He said other people in his firm spoke with Daniels on the phone, but he never took her on as a client.

Tacopina said that even if Brewster’s account of the contact was correct — which Tacopina denies — the conflict of interest rules would not prohibit him from representing Trump.

At most, Tacopina said, he would be blocked from cross-examining Daniels at a trial. But another lawyer could handle that, the attorney noted.

Tacopina said Daniels, who received a $130,000 hush money payment from Trump’s then-fixer in 2016 that is the focus of the criminal probe, is not a party to the case, and might not even be called as a witness by prosecutors.

— Dan Mangan

Since Alvin Bragg became Manhattan’s district attorney, his office has filed scores of felony counts for falsifying business records, NBC News reported.

Prosecutors in New York have filed 117 of those felony counts against 29 individuals and companies since Bragg took charge in 2022, according to internal data from the DA’s office reported by NBC.

It’s unclear what specific charges are being considered by the Manhattan grand jury. But the data, which was first reported by The New York Times, came amid speculation that Bragg may be pursuing a case against Trump that rests largely on a charge of falsification of business records.

Bragg’s investigation centers on a 2016 hush money payment of $130,000 by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump years earlier. Trump denies the tryst. The payment was made shortly before the 2016 presidential election in which Trump was competing. The Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen for the payment, recording it as a legal expense.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump could become the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges — and under those unprecedented circumstances, his possible arrest could play out in multiple ways, legal experts told CNBC.

If the Manhattan grand jury votes to charge Trump after hearing evidence from the district attorney’s probe of the 2016 porn star hush money payment, the resulting indictment will first be filed under seal. Trump’s lawyers would be notified of the indictment and would negotiate a surrender date for their client.

Trump could then travel directly to the district attorney’s office in lower Manhattan to turn himself in, where he’d be formally arrested and have his fingerprints and mugshot taken.

After getting booked, Trump would be transported to a courtroom for his arraignment. It’s unclear if Trump will be seen in handcuffs or required to do a “perp walk” — having to walk down a courthouse hallway in handcuffs in front of the press — on the way to his arraignment.

Once informed of the charges against him and asked to enter a plea — not guilty being by far the likelier option — Trump would most likely be released without having to pay bail.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump said he welcomes the idea of having to do a “perp walk” — walking past a crowd of reporters, photographers and other onlookers on his way into a courtroom — following his arrest on possible criminal charges, The New York Times reported.

Trump has even wondered aloud whether he should smile for the cameras, according to the Times, which cited multiple sources close to the former president.

But no one is sure whether Trump’s remarks are “bravado or genuine resignation,” the newspaper reported. Trump has seemed disconnected from the legal threats against him in recent days, people who recently spent time with him told the Times.

Trump may be able to avoid the spectacle: U.S. Secret Service agents who protect him will work to keep him out of public view while he’s being booked, NBC News reported.

A spokesman for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

— Kevin Breuninger

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has been told to avoid media interviews after he appeared on MSNBC Ari Melber’s show Monday to talk about the grand jury investigation.

“Given the sensitivity of the time period I have advised Michael to not do any more TV appearances until further notice,” Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said.

Cohen has routinely made comments to reporters on his way in and out of meetings with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and gone on television to talk about the probe.

He is also the key witness in the criminal case against Trump, having been the person who paid porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to not talk to the media about her claim of having had a 2006 sexual tryst with Trump.

— Dan Mangan