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      Mark Gonzalez Seeks to Challenge Senator Ted Cruz in Texas

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      Mark Gonzalez, facing a conservative effort to remove him from the district attorney’s office in Nueces County, Texas, resigned and announced his campaign for the Senate.Mark A. Gonzalez, a progressive district attorney in Nueces County, Texas, took an unusual tack when he came under fire from conservatives who didn’t like how he was doing his job.He resigned — to run for the United States Senate.Mr. Gonzalez announced Tuesday that he would join a large field of candidates in the Democratic primary to challenge Senator Ted Cruz next year, the most prominent of whom is Representative Colin Allred. In an interview, Mr. Gonzalez said his decision was directly tied to efforts to remove him from his elected office.“Prior to that, I hadn’t really had any more taste or want for politics,” he said. But “with the petition and some of the stuff that’s been going on at least statewide, it just kind of — I don’t know if the word is just angered me or incited me or something — and so I just decided that I don’t want to represent or try to represent just Nueces County. I want to represent Texans that want change.”He said the other issues that animated him included preserving abortion rights and voting rights, and combating conservative efforts to limit the teaching of subjects like the United States’ racial history.His campaign announcement video highlights Mr. Cruz’s decision to leave Texas for a vacation in Cancún in 2021 while the state was dealing with a disastrous winter storm, and contrasts that decision with a clip of Mr. Gonzalez during the same storm, asking Nueces County residents to notify his office of any incidents of price gouging. Mr. Cruz, a Republican seeking a third term in the Senate, fended off an unexpectedly fierce challenge from Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, in 2018. He won that race by about 2.5 percentage points, two years after Donald J. Trump had won the state by nine points.It will be an uphill battle for any Democrat to unseat Mr. Cruz given Texas’ partisan leanings, but his is one of the few Republican-held Senate seats — along with one in Florida — that Democrats may target amid a tough 2024 map. By contrast, Republicans see pickup opportunities in eight red or swing states. Democrats currently control the Senate by a narrow margin.Mr. Gonzalez does, however, have a record of winning difficult races. He was elected in Nueces County, home to the city of Corpus Christi, in 2016 and 2020, even as Mr. Trump narrowly won the county. He previously said he would not run for re-election as district attorney.“I think that more Texans probably can identify with a guy like me,” he said when asked what set him apart from the other Democratic candidates — a guy like him meaning, among other things, someone from a low-income family who has a criminal record.He added: “We have strong family values, we believe in small government, but I also believe in opportunity and giving people chances, and I think most Texans feel that way.”In his announcement video and his resignation letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Mr. Gonzalez took the unusual step of emphasizing an element of his background that many candidates might have sidestepped: a drunk-driving arrest when he was 19. In the resignation letter, he said he had taken responsibility and pleaded guilty, then been dismayed to see the same charges dismissed for a defendant who, unlike Mr. Gonzalez, could afford a lawyer.“It dawned on me that the wealthy and well-connected have a different criminal legal system applied to them and accusations against them than everyone else does,” he wrote. “My ignorance of the system was detrimental to my life and has been to so many others just like me.”Mr. Gonzalez also drew attention to an effort by conservative activists to remove him from office, which his resignation has made moot. The conservative petition accused him of incompetence and official misconduct.The petition was both specific and broad. Specifically, it accused him of mishandling two capital murder cases. But it also accused him of having “intentionally nullified duly enacted laws of his oath of office,” reflecting a growing pattern of right-wing attempts to remove progressive prosecutors who have used their discretion to seek lower sentences or to decline to charge certain crimes.“They want to use me as a sacrificial lamb to send a foreboding message to other duly elected D.A.s in Texas who exercise their discretion,” Mr. Gonzalez wrote of state Republicans in his resignation letter.“I will not be used that way, nor will I run from a fight,” he added. “Quite the opposite, in fact.” More

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      Manhattan D.A. Investigates Mayor Adams’s Circle of Support

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      Mayor Eric Adams has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, but District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg has targeted people who are in the mayor’s circle.The Manhattan district attorney’s office is prosecuting two criminal cases that come uncomfortably close to Mayor Eric Adams, bringing unwanted attention to the administration and raising questions about Mr. Adams’s relationships with the accused.One involves Mr. Adams’s former buildings commissioner, who has been charged in a sealed indictment with corruption-related crimes, according to two people familiar with the investigation who asked for anonymity to discuss sealed charges.In the other, six people — including a longtime friend of the mayor, Dwayne Montgomery — were charged with conspiring to illegally funnel money to Mr. Adams’s mayoral campaign in 2021.The cases have subjected the mayor’s associates — and to a degree, Mr. Adams himself — to the scrutiny of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. While there is no suggestion that Mr. Adams is under criminal investigation, the cases are not the first to place the mayor, who touts his law-and-order credentials, in the awkward position of having to explain his conduct or that of his associates.Since taking office in January 2022, the mayor also has been linked with a Brooklyn pastor known as the “bling bishop” who was charged with fraud and extortion and to twin brothers who share a criminal history involving money laundering.In the most recent case, the sealed indictment against the mayor’s former buildings commissioner, Eric Ulrich, Mr. Adams has faced questions about his relationship with the former agency head.Mr. Ulrich resigned in November 2022, days after investigators with the district attorney’s office seized his phone and he was questioned by prosecutors. He told them that months earlier, Mayor Adams had warned him that he was the focus of a criminal investigation, two of the people said. (Mr. Ulrich’s comments to prosecutors were first reported by The Daily News.)Mr. Adams has denied that he gave any warning, which would not appear to violate state laws in any event. A spokesman for Mr. Adams said in a statement Thursday that the mayor had not received any requests from the Manhattan district attorney regarding either Mr. Ulrich or the straw donor case.“The mayor hasn’t spoken to Mr. Ulrich or Mr. Montgomery about either of the respective investigations, either before or after they became public,” he said.Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, has presented himself as a force for law and order. Dave Sanders for The New York TimesIn recent weeks, a grand jury voted to charge Mr. Ulrich with having accepted a discounted apartment from a real estate developer who has had business before the city, the people said. Mr. Ulrich accepted at least some of the benefit while he was still in charge of the agency. The Brooklyn-based developer, Mark Caller, is also charged in the indictment, the people said.The charges also touch on what prosecutors are expected to characterize as Mr. Ulrich’s ties to organized crime, the people said. The indictment is likely to be announced by Mr. Bragg in September.A lawyer for Mr. Ulrich, Samuel M. Braverman, said last month that until he saw the charges in an indictment, he would not comment. On Thursday, he said he had nothing to add.Mr. Caller’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said he had not seen the indictment but that he expected it to include an allegation that Mr. Ulrich received a discounted apartment in one of Mr. Caller’s buildings.“That is patently false,” Mr. Brafman said. “He paid market rate without any discount whatsoever,” Mr. Brafman said, adding that Mr. Ulrich had rented the apartment before becoming buildings commissioner.Last month, Mr. Bragg announced the indictment of the six people who he said had recruited and reimbursed individual donors to Mr. Adams’s campaign in order to illegally obtain more money from the city. The lead defendant is Mr. Montgomery, a retired Police Department inspector, longtime friend of the mayor and a former colleague on the force. Prosecutors said that the defendants had sought to influence the administration.According to court papers filed by the district attorney’s office, Mr. Montgomery and Rachel Atcheson, a close aide to Mr. Adams, set up a fund-raiser at which straw donors gave the campaign $250 apiece. Neither Ms. Atcheson nor Mr. Adams have been accused of wrongdoing.New York City has a matching funds program designed to dilute the influence of big donors that rewards campaigns for donations of up to $250 from residents. For every personal donation of that amount to a mayoral campaign, the city gives a campaign $2,000.The mayor, a retired police captain, campaigned as a tough-on-crime candidate who would restore order to New York City in the wake of the pandemic. In a Monday news conference, Mr. Adams said that he would not be distracted by the case against Mr. Ulrich.“The D.A. has his job,” he said. “I have my job.”Mr. Bragg, who like Mr. Adams was elected in 2021, has studiously avoided direct confrontation with the mayor, and the two men maintain a cordial relationship. But the district attorney, a former federal prosecutor who handled public corruption cases, has said he wants his office to pursue investigations into the powerful.District Attorney Alvin Bragg has maintained a relationship with the mayor even as investigations proceed.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesA spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg declined to comment on either of the cases.Mr. Ulrich told prosecutors that Mr. Adams’s warning was delivered during a brief meeting in 2022, the people said. Beforehand, the mayor asked Mr. Ulrich to hand his phone to an associate, they said.Then, as the two men talked, Mr. Adams warned Mr. Ulrich to “watch your back and watch your phones,” according to the people. Mr. Ulrich, they said, later told prosecutors that he understood the mayor to mean that he was a focus of a criminal investigation.At the Monday news conference, Mr. Adams said that he had not even known that Mr. Ulrich was under criminal investigation.Mr. Adams has shown few qualms about maintaining ties with people who have been accused of wrongdoing. He appointed Mr. Ulrich to head the buildings department despite a letter Mr. Ulrich had written four years earlier on behalf of a constituent with mob ties, and despite Mr. Ulrich’s acknowledged gambling and alcohol addictions.The mayor also remains close with Johnny and Robert Petrosyants, twin brothers who pleaded guilty to financial crimes in 2014 and have continued to engage in a pattern of questionable business dealings, according to a New York Times investigation.“I’m going to talk with people who have stumbled and fell,” Mr. Adams has said of the Petrosyants. “Because I’m perfectly imperfect, and this is a city made up of perfectly imperfect people.”Supporters and members of the Adams administration are not Mr. Bragg’s only recent City Hall targets: His prosecutors are pursuing a third case, which focuses on the administration of Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio.The district attorney’s office is expected, in the coming weeks, to unveil charges against Howard Redmond, the head of Mr. de Blasio’s security detail. Mr. Redmond has been accused of blocking an investigation into the misuse of the detail by Mr. de Blasio, including bringing his security team on unauthorized city-financed trips related to his failed 2020 presidential bid.A lawyer for Mr. Redmond declined to comment.In June, Mr. de Blasio was fined close to $500,000 by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board for that conduct. Mr. de Blasio has appealed that ruling. More

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      As Prosecutors Revisit Police Killings, Charges Are Still Rare

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      Pamela Price, a new district attorney in Northern California, is the latest to reopen cases that had seemingly been shut, including one from more than 15 years ago.Agustin Gonsalez was shot dead in 2018 by police officers in Hayward, Calif., when he refused to drop a sharp object during a confrontation on a dark street.Andrew Moppin-Buckskin was killed by Oakland officers in 2007 after he ran away following a car chase, hid under a vehicle and failed to comply with their demands.Two years ago, Mario Gonzalez died after he was pinned on the ground for more than five minutes by officers in Alameda, Calif.In all three cases, prosecutors determined that the police should not be criminally charged, seemingly closing the book.But shortly after she became the district attorney of Alameda County in January, Pamela Price initiated a new review of those cases and five others in one of the most extensive re-examinations of police killings launched by progressive prosecutors.Ms. Price’s review is notable because her predecessors had already cleared the officers of wrongdoing and two of the reopened cases occurred more than 15 years ago.As high-profile instances of police brutality shocked the public in recent years and raised questions about official law enforcement accounts, liberal prosecutors campaigned on the promise that they would review cases that they felt were hastily closed without charges. Their efforts to revisit old cases have won praise from the activists and liberal Democrats who voted for them.But the re-examinations so far have rarely led to criminal charges.“To reopen a police use-of-force case is, in many ways, a herculean task,” said Steve Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney in Fairfax County, Va. He lost in court after he charged two federal Park Police officers for the 2017 shooting of a man who fled a car crash, a case that the Justice Department previously reviewed and declined to pursue.The incidents almost never have evidence as stark as the bystander video showing George Floyd being pinned to the ground in 2020 for more than nine minutes by Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering Mr. Floyd.The circumstances often are more ambiguous, the footage less telling. And once a district attorney writes a lengthy memo detailing why criminal charges are unjustified against a police officer, it can be difficult for a successor to overcome those arguments, absent new evidence.“Everybody is going to go through it again, and the outcome in all probability is going to be the same,” said Jim Pasco, the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police. “And what’s Einstein’s definition of insanity?”The biggest hurdle for pursuing criminal charges is the wide latitude that officers have to use force. State legislatures, including California’s, have tried to narrow that ability. But officers generally can still use lethal force when they feel they or others could be killed, a level of immunity that law enforcement officials say is necessary to ensure the public’s safety.Pamela Price, the new district attorney of Alameda County, Calif., announced this year that she would review eight police killings, including one dating to 2007.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesAlameda County, Ms. Price’s jurisdiction, covers a large swath of the East Bay across from San Francisco, containing 14 cities and numerous police departments. In the county seat of Oakland, where the Black Panther Party emerged in the 1960s, a legacy of radical politics is intertwined with a troubled history of law enforcement. The Oakland Police Department has been under federal oversight for more than two decades.Ms. Price campaigned on a liberal platform that, besides reviewing old cases, included removing local residents from death row and resentencing inmates serving life sentences — an effort, she said, to restore public trust. Since taking office, she has directed her staff to seek the lowest possible prison sentence for most crimes.She said that in the past, prosecutors routinely gave officers a pass when they killed someone on the job, and she wants questionable police killings to face the same rigor that other criminal cases get.“Every case that we’re looking at now was determined under a double standard,” Ms. Price said in an interview. “Police officers received a different standard of justice than everyday people.”Ms. Price is among a growing cadre of progressive prosecutors elected over the last decade, beginning with the 2016 elections of Kim Foxx in Chicago and Kimberly Gardner in St. Louis, on promises of reducing jail populations and holding police accountable. The movement gained steam after Floyd’s murder.Some prominent district attorneys have since faced a backlash over crime concerns. Chesa Boudin was recalled last year in San Francisco, while Ms. Gardner resigned last week as she faced criticism for her handling of violent crime. Ms. Foxx is not running for re-election next year and has endured criticism from moderates and conservatives, especially for her support of eliminating cash bail statewide.In Maine, a police officer has never been prosecuted for an on-duty killing. But in July 2020, Natasha Irving, the district attorney for four counties, said she would seek charges for the 2007 police shooting death of Gregori Jackson, who was drunk and ran away after a routine traffic stop in Waldoboro, the town where Ms. Irving grew up.Three years later, however, Ms. Irving said that based on the attorney general’s review of the forensics from the case, she will not file charges.“It’s just not going to be a provable case,” she said in an interview.Karla Gonsalez stood at a memorial to her son at the site in Hayward, Calif., where he was shot and killed by police officers.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesIn the Virginia case pursued by Mr. Descano, Bijan Ghaisar, 25, was involved in a minor car crash and then fled in his Jeep, pursued by two officers who cornered Mr. Ghaisar in a residential neighborhood. When the vehicle moved toward a police car, they opened fire, killing him.Mr. Descano brought a case, but a judge dismissed the charges, ruling the officers reasonably feared they were in danger. His efforts to pursue the case further were rejected by the state’s attorney general and the Justice Department.Such reviews offer the possibility of justice for still grieving families but also may unrealistically raise their hopes. Karla Gonsalez, the mother of Mr. Gonsalez, the man who was killed in Hayward, said she was torn when she heard Ms. Price was reopening her son’s case.Television outlets began replaying the body camera footage of Mr. Gonsalez’s confrontation with police. For his family, all of the anger, grief and unresolved questions came rushing back. Why had the officers not tried to de-escalate the situation?“I was excited to know that it was going to be opened up again,” Ms. Gonsalez said. “At the same time, I was very nervous that it was going to be another roadblock, another failure.”Less than 2 percent of police killings result in charges, according to Philip M. Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University. That figure has not budged since 2020. The number of people killed by the police is holding steady — last year it was 1,200, compared with 1,147 in 2022, according to Mapping Police Violence.“From where I sit, nothing has changed,” Mr. Stinson said.In Los Angeles County, George Gascón, who was elected district attorney in 2020, appointed a special prosecutor to reopen four cases in which his predecessor declined to file charges.Ryan Young for The New York TimesIn Los Angeles County, George Gascón, who was elected district attorney in 2020, appointed a special prosecutor to reopen four cases in which his predecessor, Jackie Lacey, declined to file charges. He also asked an independent team of experts to review more than 300 previous use-of-force cases to see if the evidence warranted criminal charges.The special prosecutor, Lawrence Middleton, had secured convictions in a 1993 federal trial against Los Angeles Police Department officers for beating Rodney King. In the new cases, he has secured indictments against two officers in the 2018 shooting death of Christopher Deandre Mitchell, who was driving a stolen vehicle and had an air rifle between his legs when he was confronted by officers in a grocery store parking lot. (“Both officers’ use of deadly force was reasonable under the circumstances,” Ms. Lacey wrote in a 2019 memo.)The re-examinations themselves take time, and liberal prosecutors may yet file criminal charges against more officers in past cases. But they said that charges should not be the only benchmark of whether their reviews are worthwhile.“I think there is huge value to reopening a case if there is probable cause, or if there is evidence that seems compelling in any way,” Ms. Irving, the prosecutor in Maine, said. “Yes, part of it is to send a message to people who would be bad actors. Part of it is to send a message to families that have lost loved ones, or individuals who have been harmed, that they count.”Ed Obayashi, a California-based expert in use of force who trains law enforcement, said in 2021 that Mario Gonzalez did not seem to be a threat to the public in Alameda and questioned why officers restrained him before he died. The police had responded to a call that Mr. Gonzalez, 26, was acting strangely in a park and talking to himself.Mr. Obayashi said this week that he did not fault Ms. Price for reviewing the case, but he also felt that if there was consensus in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office under her predecessor, Ms. Price should not have reopened it.“It’s a big concern to law enforcement because these types of decisions, to revisit old cases that former prosecutors have decided that no charges should be brought against the officer, it’s political,” Mr. Obayashi said. “It’s politically driven.”Ms. Price’s review also includes two cases from 15 years ago that occurred seven months apart and involved the same officer killing men who ran away after traffic stops, including Mr. Moppin-Buckskin. The officer, Hector Jimenez, was cleared in each case and remains with the Oakland Police Department.“For the life of me I can’t understand what Ms. Price thinks she’s doing with those kinds of cases, some 15 years after they occurred,” said Michael Rains, a lawyer for Mr. Jimenez.In Hayward, the city agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle a federal lawsuit with Agustin Gonsalez’s family but said it was a way to support his children rather than an admission of wrongdoing. The city said in April that there appeared to be no new evidence that warranted reopening the case.Mr. Gonsalez was shot in November 2018 after police officers confronted him. He was suicidal and was holding a razor blade. He refused to drop the blade and approached the officers with his arms outstretched. That’s when the two veteran police officers shot him 12 times.Karla Gonsalez recently sat in her sister’s kitchen and described her son as a father of two who was an Oakland sports fan and often drove nearly 400 miles south to Disneyland with his season pass. In the corner of her living room was a makeshift shrine, with a flickering candle and a crucifix draped over his portrait.Cynthia Nunes, Mr. Gonsalez’s cousin, said her family was grateful his case was being reopened. But they want more.“Charges actually have to be brought forward, too,” she said. “The system needs to change.”Julie Bosman More

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      Trump’s Day of Martyrdom Didn’t Go Quite as He Expected

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      Court officials didn’t take a mug shot of former President Donald J. Trump at his arraignment on Tuesday. But it’s not because he didn’t want one. The authorities didn’t really need an ID photo of one of the most recognizable faces on earth.Mr. Trump wanted that mug shot, CNN reported, and when he didn’t get it, his presidential campaign put a fake one on a fund-raising T-shirt. He wanted it for the same reason he brought his private videographer from Florida to the courthouse: to contrive physical relics of his martyrdom at the hands of his leftist oppressors, proof of the vast conspiracy that he can wave at rallies and blare on his social media platform.But a few things happened on Tuesday that Mr. Trump didn’t count on. The images — and the details of the case itself — sent a far more serious message than he expected.Instead of a defiant N.Y.P.D. photo or a raised fist, the lasting image of the day may well be that of a humbled former president looking hunched, angry and nervous at the courtroom defense table, a suddenly small man wedged between his lawyers, as two New York State court officers loomed behind him in a required posture of making sure the defendant stayed in his place.And the 34 felony charges, to which Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty, turned out to be more significant and more sweeping than previously suspected. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, described a broad conspiracy, with Mr. Trump at the center, to falsify business records for the purpose of unlawfully influencing the 2016 presidential election. The former president, he said, “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”It’s been known for a while that the case revolved around hush-money payments that Mr. Trump made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to cover up an affair they had. Falsifying business records can sometimes be charged as a misdemeanor in New York State, and to bump up the charges to felonies requires proof that they were falsified to conceal another crime. That crime was widely believed to be a federal campaign finance violation, and some legal experts described that combination as an untested legal theory, because federal violations are outside Mr. Bragg’s jurisdiction.But it turned out that Mr. Bragg and the grand jury had more than one basis for making the charges felonies. The prosecutor argued on Tuesday that in addition to the federal campaign finance violations, Mr. Trump violated a state election law that makes it a crime to prevent any person from being elected to public office by unlawful means while acting in a conspiracy with others. Mr. Bragg is on much safer ground tying fraudulent business records to a violation of state law, because the defense cannot argue that he lacks jurisdiction on the matter — though Mr. Trump’s lawyers can still argue that state law doesn’t apply to a federal election.And that wasn’t the only state law that Mr. Bragg said he would cite. The payments to Ms. Daniels were made by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, who was reimbursed by Mr. Trump in a fraudulent way, the prosecution said. The charging document said this reimbursement was illegally disguised as income in a way that “mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.” So add state tax violations to the list.The charges also revealed the breadth of Mr. Bragg’s case, showing he intends to persuade a jury of a conspiracy that extended from Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to David Pecker, a former publisher of The National Enquirer, who was allegedly paid $150,000 by Mr. Trump to procure the silence of a second woman with whom Mr. Trump had an affair, the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. It was not certain until Tuesday that the relationship with Ms. McDougal would be part of the case. The felony charges are specifically about Ms. Daniels, but to prove them, Mr. Bragg made it clear that he would describe a much broader pattern of payoffs that included Ms. McDougal.Prosecutors also revealed that they would rely on more than just the oral testimony of their star witness, Mr. Cohen, who already served a year in federal prison for his role in the payments and whose credibility will be challenged. There will, for example, be an audio recording of Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen discussing how exactly the payment to Ms. McDougal should be made to The National Enquirer’s parent company. And the evidence will also include texts and email messages discussing Mr. Trump’s suggestion to delay paying Ms. Daniels until after the election, “because at that point it would not matter if the story became public,” prosecutors said. (Those texts may effectively short-circuit any attempt by Mr. Trump to claim the payments were made solely to prevent his wife from learning about his affairs.)Mr. Bragg will have to prove all these charges in court, of course, assuming the case goes to trial, and the charging documents did not reveal more than the surface of the evidence he plans to use. It’s still not a slam-dunk case. But these crimes are hardly novel ones for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is used to prosecuting business record cases, and are far from the one-off political persecution that Republicans are claiming it to be.Inevitably, the images of the day and the details of the charges will have a cumulative and wearying effect on many voters. Mr. Trump thinks only of his core supporters, who will share his rage at his ordeal on Tuesday and demand revenge. But there aren’t enough base Trump voters to guarantee him even the Republican nomination, let alone the general election in 2024. Will the images of Mr. Trump at a defendant’s table, not to mention the headlines about 34 counts of paying hush money to a porn star, win a substantial number of swing voters to his side?It’s hard to imagine all of this will really do him any good, particularly if there are charges down the road from other prosecutors alleging abuse of his presidential office. Mr. Trump may sell a few fake T-shirts, but with the law closing in on him, he will have a much harder time selling himself.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Entrega y acusación de Donald Trump: lo que sabemos

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      Al expresidente se le acusó por su papel en el pago a una estrella porno a cambio de su silencio. Se espera que el martes se entregue a las autoridades de Nueva York.Se espera que Donald Trump, el primer presidente estadounidense acusado de un delito, se entregue a las autoridades en Manhattan el martes, y comparezca en la sala del tribunal por la tarde.Aunque Trump fue acusado la semana pasada, la audiencia del martes marcará la primera vez que se revelen los cargos en el caso, que se enfoca en la participación del expresidente en el pago de dinero para silenciar a una estrella de cine para adultos, Stormy Daniels, quien dijo que había tenido una aventura con él.Un grupo de seguidores de Trump, entre ellos la congresista Marjorie Taylor Greene de Georgia, han planeado u mitin en las afueras del tribunal para protestar contra el fiscal de distrito de Manhattan, Alvin L. Bragg, quien presentó los cargos. Los funcionarios encargados de hacer cumplir la ley de varias agencias se han estado preparando durante semanas para la posibilidad de que haya protestas o escándalos.Bragg ha estado indagando en los pagos por silencio desde el verano pasado, pagos que fueron realizados por Michael D. Cohen, solucionador de problemas de Trump en aquel entonces. Los fiscales formaron un gran jurado en enero, y los jurados votaron para acusar a Trump la semana pasada. Si bien los hechos son dramáticos y la acusación resulta explosiva, el caso contra Trump podría descansar en una teoría legal que no se ha sometido a prueba. No será sencillo asegurar una condena.Esto es lo que sabemos, y no sabemos del caso penal contra Trump:¿Por qué se acusó a Donald Trump?Los fiscales podrían alegar que el pago a Daniels en efecto se convirtió en una donación indebida a la campaña de Trump, asumiendo que el silencio de Daniels lo benefició.T.J. Kirkpatrick para The New York TimesLos cargos contra Trump aún no se han divulgado, aunque dos personas con conocimiento del asunto dijeron que hay más de dos decenas de cargos en la acusación.Se espera que los cargos surjan de un pago que se le hizo a Daniels, quien en octubre de 2016, durante las últimas semanas de la campaña presidencial, intentaba vender su historia de una aventura con Trump.En un principio, los representantes de Daniels contactaron a The National Enquirer para ofrecerle derechos exclusivos de la historia. David Pecker, el editor del tabloide y aliado de Trump, había acordado buscar notas que pudieran ser dañinas para Trump en la campaña de 2016 y en un momento incluso acordó comprar la historia del amorío de otra mujer con Trump y nunca publicarla, una práctica conocida como “atrapar y matar”.Pero Pecker no compró la historia de Daniels. En lugar de ello, él y el principal editor del tabloide, Dylan Howard, ayudaron a gestionar un acuerdo separado entre Cohen y la abogada de Daniels.Cohen pagó 130.000 dólares y Trump luego le rembolsó el dinero desde la Casa Blanca.En 2018, Cohen se declaró culpable de varios cargos, entre ellos crímenes federales de financiamiento de campaña relacionados con el dinero pagado por el silencio de Daniels. El pago, según concluyeron los fiscales federales, equivalía a una donación impropia a la campaña de Trump.En los días posteriores a la declaración de culpabilidad de Cohen, la oficina del fiscal de distrito abrió su propia investigación penal sobre el asunto. Si bien los fiscales federales se centraron en Cohen, la investigación del fiscal de distrito se centraría en Trump.¿Qué pasa después?Trump llegó a Nueva York el lunes luego de viajar desde su propiedad de Mar-a-Lago en Florida y pernoctó en la Trump Tower.Se espera que se dirija el martes al sur de Manhattan para entregarse en la oficina de la fiscalía de distrito de Manhattan, antes de ser procesado en el edificio de los tribunales penales de Manhattan.¿Cómo se va a entregar Trump?Trump será guiado a través de los pasos de rutina del procesamiento de arresto por delitos graves en Nueva York.Si bien lo normal es que los acusados arrestados por delitos graves sean esposados, no está claro si se hará una excepción para un expresidente. La mayoría de los acusados están esposados a la espalda, pero a algunos acusados de delitos de cuello blanco que se considera que representan un menor peligro se les aseguran las manos al frente.Es casi seguro que Trump esté acompañado en cada paso por agentes armados del Servicio Secreto de EE. UU, desde el momento en que sea detenido hasta su comparecencia ante un juez en el imponente Edificio de Tribunales Penales. La ley requiere que estos agentes lo protejan en todo momento.La seguridad del tribunal la brindan los oficiales de la corte estatal, con quienes el Servicio Secreto ya ha trabajado antes. Pero el principal vocero de la agencia federal, Anthony J. Guglielmi, dijo que no podía comentar sobre las medidas que habría para Trump.Después de que sea procesado, es casi seguro que será puesto en libertad previo compromiso con el tribunal, porque es probable que la acusación solo contenga cargos de delitos graves no violentos; según la ley de Nueva York, los fiscales no pueden solicitar que se detenga a un acusado bajo fianza en tales casos.Entonces, ¿qué es lo que Trump habría hecho mal?Michael Cohen, otrora el solucionador de problemas de Trump, se declaró culpable en 2018 de varios cargos, entre ellos a delitos federales de financiamiento de campaña a partir del dinero pagado por el silencio de Daniels.Jefferson Siegel para The New York TimesCuando se declaró culpable en el tribunal federal, Cohen señaló a su jefe. Dijo que había sido Trump quien lo instruyó para que sobornara a Daniels, algo que los fiscales luego corroboraron.Los fiscales también cuestionaron los cheques que Trump le emitía mensualmente a Cohen para reembolsarlo. En documentos judiciales indicaron que la empresa de Trump “contabilizó falsamente” los pagos mensuales como gastos legales y que los registros de la compañía mencionaban un acuerdo de anticipos con Cohen. Si bien Cohen era un abogado y se convirtió en el abogado personal de Trump luego de que este asumió el cargo, no hubo ningún acuerdo de este tipo y el rembolso no estaba relacionado a ningún servicio legal brindado por Cohen.Cohen ha dicho que Trump estaba al tanto del acuerdo falso de anticipo de honorarios, una acusación que podría constituir la base del caso contra el expresidente.En Nueva York, falsear registros de negocios puede constituir un delito, si bien uno menor. Para que el delito ascienda a delito grave, los fiscales del equipo de Bragg deben mostrar que la “intención de defraudar” de Trump incluía la intención de cometer u ocultar un segundo delito.En este caso, el segundo delito podría ser una infracción a la ley electoral. Si bien el dinero que se paga a cambio de silencio no es por sí mismo ilegal, los fiscales podrían argumentar que los 130.000 dólares en efecto se convirtieron en una donación indebida para la campaña de Trump, bajo la teoría de que benefició a su candidatura al acallar a Daniels.¿Será un caso difícil de probar?Podría ser difícil condenar a Trump o enviarlo a prisión. En primer lugar, los abogados de Trump seguramente atacarán la credibilidad de Cohen mencionando sus antecedentes penales. Los fiscales podrían contraatacar diciendo que el excolaborador de Trump mintió hace años por su jefe y ahora está en una mejor posición de brindar detalles de la conducta de Trump.El caso contra Trump también podría girar sobre una teoría legal que no ha sido probada.Según los juristas, los fiscales de Nueva York nunca antes han combinado un cargo de falsificación de registros comerciales con una infracción a la ley estatal electoral en un caso relacionado con unas elecciones presidenciales, o con alguna campaña federal. Debido a que es un terreno legal inexplorado, es posible que un juez lo desestime o reduzca el cargo de delito grave a un delito menor.Incluso si el cargo procediera, equivale a un delito menor de nivel inferior. Si al final Trump fuera declarado culpable, enfrentaría una sentencia de máximo cuatro años, y no sería obligatorio pasar tiempo en prisión.¿Cómo reaccionó Trump a la acusación?Trump respondió en un comunicado, en el que decía que el voto del gran jurado de Manhattan era “una Persecución política e Interferencia Electoral del mayor nivel de la historia”.El comunicado de Trump se hacía eco de lo que ha sido un esfuerzo extraordinario y vertiginoso para tratar de evitar que Bragg lo acuse.Sin embargo, el comunicado fue notable por su tono agresivo contra la fiscalía, y un indicio de lo que podría estar por venir.“Los demócratas han mentido, hecho trampa y robado en su obsesión de intentar ‘Atrapar a Trump’, pero ahora han hecho lo impensable”, escribió Trump. “Acusando a una persona completamente inocente”.Presentó la investigación que resultó en la acusación como la más reciente en una larga retahíla de indagaciones penales que ha enfrentado, ninguna de las cuales ha resultado en cargos.Michael Gold More

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      New York Already Knows a Lot About Donald Trump

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      If Donald J. Trump seems a little on edge lately, so does the city where he made his name.The former president, after largely eluding legal accountability of any kind for decades, has now been indicted by a grand jury in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.So far Mr. Trump has handled the investigation, which has looked into whether he broke laws while paying hush money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election, exactly as one might imagine: with the minimum amount of class and the maximum use of racist slurs. Not only has he made sure everyone knows Mr. Bragg is Black, he has also suggested he is subhuman.“HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL,” the former president told his followers on Truth Social while waiting for the indictment, using anti-Black racism as well as antisemitism to describe Mr. Bragg. Mr. Trump also called for widespread protests before he was indicted and predicted “death and destruction,” forcing law enforcement agencies to prepare for possible violence in the streets on Tuesday, when he is expected to be arraigned.All of this has made New York City, his former hometown, a bit anxious, too. The wait for Mr. Trump’s arraignment and any backlash that may come from it has the city unnerved.Few Americans have seen Mr. Trump shimmy his way out of a jam more often than New Yorkers. We’ve seen him bounce back from bankruptcy six times, and he has never been truly held to account for his long history of excluding Black people from the rental properties that helped make him rich. We’ve seen his political fortunes soar despite credible claims of sexual assault and tax fraud. We’ve watched up close his gravity-defying, horrifying metamorphosis from a tacky real estate developer and tabloid fixture into a C-list celebrity and, finally, a one-term president with authoritarian aspirations.Given that history, the idea that Mr. Trump will soon be fingerprinted and booked in a New York courthouse has left many in disbelief. A kind of collective angst over the Trump prosecution has settled over New York City, where many deeply disdain him but seem unconvinced he will ever truly be held to account.During a recent stage performance of “Titanique,” the hit musical comedy and glitter-filled parody of the 1997 film about the doomed ship, Russell Daniels, the actor playing Rose’s mother, let out a kind of guttural scream. “It’s not fair that Trump hasn’t been arrested yet!” Mr. Daniels cried. Inside the Manhattan theater, the audience roared.In Harlem recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton held a prayer vigil for Mr. Bragg, who received threats after Mr. Trump used his social media platform to share a menacing photograph of himself with a baseball bat juxtaposed with a photo of the district attorney, in a clear hint of his violent mind-set.“We want God to cover him and protect him,” Mr. Sharpton said, referring to Mr. Bragg. “Whatever the decision may be, whether we like it or not, but he should not have to face this kind of threat, implied or explicit. Let us pray.”New Yorkers, weary and still recovering from the pandemic Mr. Trump badly mismanaged, are also now bracing themselves for the possibility of demonstrations by the former president’s supporters. In the hours after the indictment on March 29, N.Y.P.D. helicopters hovered over the courthouses of Lower Manhattan and officers set up barricades along largely empty streets. The Police Department ordered all roughly 36,000 uniformed members to report for duty amid bomb threats and the arrest of one Trump supporter with a knife.The inevitable spectacle began on Monday, when television helicopters tracked every inch of Mr. Trump’s motorcade from LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan, as if he were visiting royalty. The courthouse area downtown is expected be largely closed to traffic on Tuesday. All Supreme Court trials in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building will be adjourned early. There are also police lines and TV trucks around Trump Tower, where the former president stayed on Monday night. Meanwhile, Republican groups and Trump supporters are planning or sponsoring rallies nearby, one of which will be addressed by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will bring her destructive rhetoric up from Georgia.Of the four known criminal investigations Mr. Trump faces, the Manhattan case is seen by some legal experts as the least serious, in part because it may involve allegations of campaign finance violations before his presidency rather than attempts to abuse his office by overturning the results of an election or inciting supporters to effectively overthrow the United States government. Fair enough.Still, it’s a poetic irony that the former president will face his first criminal indictment in New York City, the town where he sought to burnish his “law and order” credentials. In 1989, Mr. Trump took out a notorious ad in several newspapers, including The New York Times, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty when a group of Black and Latino teenagers were accused of the sexual assault of a jogger in Central Park. After serving prison sentences that varied from six to 13 years, the teens were exonerated.“What has happened to the respect for authority, the fear of retribution by the courts, society and the police for those who break the law, who wantonly trespass on the rights of others?” Mr. Trump wrote in the 1989 ad. “How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits?”Over many years, New York has learned a painful lesson. Mr. Trump and his many misdeeds are best taken seriously.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump Prepares to Surrender in New York as Police Brace for Protests

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      Donald J. Trump prepared on Friday to surrender to prosecutors in Manhattan next week as the New York police braced for protests and sharply partisan responses from Democrats and Republicans ushered in a tumultuous time for a deeply polarized nation.A day after a grand jury indicted Mr. Trump and made him the first former president to face criminal charges, metal barricades were up around the criminal courthouse on Centre Street in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Trump is expected to enter the often grimy and ill-lit building with his Secret Service protection to answer charges before a state judge on Tuesday.Dozens of reporters and camera crews camped out across the street on Friday, while 20 court officers stood at the courthouse entrances, monitoring activity on the street.Mr. Trump intends to travel to New York on Monday and stay the night at Trump Tower, people familiar with his preparations said. He has no plans to hold a news conference or address the public while he is in New York, the people said.Mr. Trump remained largely quiet on Friday at Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida, where he spent the day talking on the telephone with advisers. One of his lawyers, Joe Tacopina, said in a television interview that the former president would not take a plea deal and was prepared to go to trial, a typically defiant stance that is likely to endear him to his supporters, who see the prosecution as a politically motivated vendetta by Democrats.Late on Friday afternoon, Mr. Trump burst out on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded, writing in all capital letters that Democrats were “INDICTING A TOTALLY INNOCENT MAN IN AN ACT OF OBSTRUCTION AND BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE.” He concluded that it was all happening “WHILE OUR COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL!”The former president is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan criminal court on charges related to payments made just before the 2016 presidential election to buy the silence of a porn star who said she had an extramarital affair with him. The former president, who has denied the affair, has been charged with more than two dozen counts in a sealed indictment, according to two people familiar with the matter, although the exact charges remain unknown.Conservative Republicans continued to criticize the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, whose office rebuked House Republicans for attempting to interfere in the case.The case, which could drag on for months and whose outcome is far from clear, is likely to test the country’s institutions and the rule of law. It will also have deep repercussions for the 2024 campaign for the White House, a race in which Mr. Trump remains the Republican front-runner.Mr. Trump has sought to capitalize on the criminal charges to energize his core supporters. On Thursday, he called Mr. Bragg “a disgrace” and denounced the indictment as “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.”His message was repeated across the conservative media sphere on Friday by Republican politicians and pundits.Mr. Trump was roundly defended on Fox News, including by hosts who had reviled him in private. Although the host Tucker Carson said of Mr. Trump in early 2021, “I hate him passionately,” according to a text released as part of a defamation suit against Fox, on Thursday Mr. Carlson called the indictment “one in a long line of unprecedented steps that permanent Washington has taken to stop Donald Trump from holding office in a democracy.” He also said: “Probably not the best time to give up your AR-15.”Supporters of Mr. Trump gathered outside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday after the indictment was reported.Josh Ritchie for The New York TimesEven many of Mr. Trump’s potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination snapped into line behind him in the hours after news of the indictment broke, looking more like allies than competitors. All passed on the opportunity to criticize the former president — and some rushed to his defense — in a sign of just how reluctant 2024 contenders are to directly confront him and antagonize his many millions of supporters in the party.Mike Pence — the former vice president whose life was put at risk when Jan. 6 rioters sought him out after Mr. Trump blamed him for allowing Congress to ratify the results of the 2020 election — denounced the indictment for what he called “a campaign finance issue” as an “outrage” and a “political prosecution.”Speaking at the National Review Institute in Washington, Mr. Pence said that Mr. Bragg’s prosecution “should be offensive to every American left, right and center,” and that he believed that “the American people will see this for what it is.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a potential presidential candidate who has clashed with Mr. Trump, also rushed to his defense, posting on Twitter that the indictment was “un-American” and amounted to “the weaponization of the legal system.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.A few in the G.O.P. remained silent, among them Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, and Senator John Thune, the second-ranking Senate Republican. Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who is also flirting with a presidential run, appeared to be keeping mum, as well. So too was Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and one-time Trump ally who is considering a 2024 run for president and who recently vowed that he would never again support the former president.The indictment in Manhattan concerns hush money payments made in the final days of the 2016 campaign to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film star who had threatened to go public with her claim that she had a short affair with Mr. Trump a decade earlier.Ms. Daniels was paid $130,000 not to speak publicly about her claims, and the payments were channeled through Mr. Trump’s fixer and personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, who has said Mr. Trump approved the scheme.The Manhattan case is likely to hinge on the way Mr. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, handled reimbursing Mr. Cohen. Internal Trump Organization records falsely classified the reimbursements as legal expenses, helping conceal the purpose of the payments, according to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump’s lawyers deny this.In New York, falsifying business records can be a felony if it is done to cover up another crime, and in this case prosecutors are expected to argue that the underlying crime was a violation of campaign finance law. The exact charges, however, will not be unsealed until Tuesday when Mr. Trump is brought before Justice Juan M. Merchan, a New York County jurist with 16 years on the bench, who has been assigned to handle the case.Justice Merchan also oversaw the criminal tax fraud trial of Mr. Trump’s family real estate firm late last year.On Friday, Mr. Trump took aim at Justice Merchan on Truth Social, claiming that the judge hated him and that he had “railroaded” Allen H. Weisselberg, a former executive of the Trump Organization who has pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges.The indictment in Manhattan concerns hush money payments made in the final days of 2016 to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film star.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMr. Trump is also under investigation in Georgia, where prosecutors in Fulton County are expected to make a decision soon on whether to seek an indictment against him and his allies over their efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.Mr. Trump famously made a call to the state secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, urging him to “find 11,780 votes,” which would have given him a victory in the state.A special grand jury has heard evidence in the Georgia case and produced a final report, though its recommendations on charges remain under seal.In Washington, a Justice Department special counsel is leading two separate investigations, into Mr. Trump’s broader actions to cling to power after his 2020 electoral defeat and into his hoarding of documents marked as classified after leaving office.If the other criminal investigations result in charges, there is no guarantee that the New York case will be the first to go to trial.“The fact that New York is first to indict does not mean it will be the first to try,” said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor. “A federal indictment will be swifter if it comes.”Mr. Gillers noted that New York is more receptive to pretrial appeals than federal courts, meaning there will be many opportunities for Mr. Trump’s lawyers to delay a trial in the state by filing motions seeking, for instance, a change of venue or to remove a judge.The Manhattan district attorney’s office is also under pressure from House Republicans, who have used their investigative power to demand the district attorney turn over documents and testimony related to the Trump investigation, an extraordinary attempt by members of Congress to intervene in a criminal inquiry.Mr. Bragg’s office fired back in a letter on Friday, accusing three Republican committee chairmen who demanded documents — Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio on the Judiciary Committee, James R. Comer of Kentucky on the Oversight Committee and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin on the Administration Committee — of aiding a campaign to denigrate the district attorney’s office.The letter noted that before being indicted, Mr. Trump had used his social media platform to insult Mr. Bragg and threaten “death and destruction” if he were charged.“You could use the stature of your office to denounce these attacks and urge respect for the fairness of our justice system and for the work of the impartial grand jury,” wrote Leslie Dubeck, the general counsel for the district attorney’s office.“Instead, you and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges,” Ms. Dubeck wrote.Reporting was contributed by Maggie Haberman, Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum, Neil Vigdor, Ben Shpigel, Richard Fausset, Danny Hakim and Chelsia Rose Marcius in New York and by Luke Broadwater, Jonathan Swan and Charlie Savage in Washington. More

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      Trump Is Indicted, Becoming First Ex-President to Face Criminal Charges

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      A Manhattan grand jury indicted Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges.On Thursday evening, after news of the charges had been widely reported, the district attorney’s office confirmed that Mr. Trump had been indicted and that prosecutors had contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to authorities in Manhattan.Mr. Trump is likely to turn himself in on Tuesday, at which point the former president will be photographed and fingerprinted in the bowels of a New York State courthouse, with Secret Service agents in tow. He will then be arraigned, at which point the specific charges will be unsealed. Mr. Trump faces more than two dozen counts, according to two people familiar with the matter. Mr. Trump has for decades avoided criminal charges despite persistent scrutiny and repeated investigations, creating an aura of legal invincibility that the indictment now threatens to puncture.But unlike the investigations that arose from his time in the White House — which examined his strong-arm tactics on the international stage, his attempts to overturn the election and his summoning of a mob to the steps of the U.S. Capitol — this case is built around a tawdry episode that predates Mr. Trump’s presidency. The reality star turned presidential candidate who shocked the political establishment by winning the White House now faces a reckoning for a hush-money payment that buried a sex scandal in the final days of the 2016 campaign.In a statement, Mr. Trump lashed out at the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, and portrayed the case as the continuation of a politically motivated witch hunt against him.“This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history,” Mr. Trump said in the statement, calling Mr. Bragg “a disgrace” and casting himself as “a completely innocent person.”The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, has been the target of Mr. Trump’s venomous attacks. Anna Watts for The New York TimesMr. Trump, who has consistently denied all wrongdoing, has already called on his followers to protest his arrest, in language reminiscent of his social media posts in the weeks before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. He has also denied any affair with the porn star, Stormy Daniels, who had been looking to sell her story of a tryst with Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign.“President Trump did not commit any crime,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, said in a statement. “We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”The first sign that an indictment was imminent on Thursday came just before 2 in the afternoon, when the three lead prosecutors on the Trump investigation walked into the Lower Manhattan building where the grand jury was sitting. One of them carried a copy of the penal law, which was most likely used to read the criminal statutes to the grand jurors before they voted.The team prosecuting Mr. Trump was led by Matthew Colangelo, center, and Susan Hoffinger, center left, as well as Chris Conroy.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesNearly three hours later, the prosecutors walked into the court clerk’s office through a back door to begin the official process of filing the indictment, arriving about two minutes before the office closed for the day.For weeks, the atmosphere outside the district attorney’s office had resembled a circus, with television trucks and protesters surrounding the building. But the fervor had cooled by Thursday, and the outskirts of the office were emptier than they had been in weeks.Mr. Bragg is the first prosecutor to indict Mr. Trump, but he might not be the last. Mr. Trump’s actions surrounding his electoral defeat are now the focus of a separate federal investigation, and a Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.But the Manhattan indictment, the product of a nearly five-year investigation, kicks off a volatile new phase in Mr. Trump’s post-presidential life as he makes a third run for the White House. And it will throw the race for the Republican nomination — which he is leading in most polls — into uncharted territory.Under normal circumstances, an indictment would deal a fatal blow to a presidential candidacy. But Mr. Trump is not a normal candidate. He has already said that he would not abandon the race if he were charged, and the case might even help him in the short term as he paints himself as a political martyr.The indictment also raises the prospect of an explosive backlash from Mr. Trump, who often uses his legal woes to stoke the rage of die-hard supporters. Already, the former president has used bigoted language to attack Mr. Bragg, the first Black man to lead the district attorney’s office, calling him a “racist,” an “animal” and a “radical left prosecutor.”Mary Kelley, a supporter of Mr. Trump, on the bridge outside of Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday.Josh Ritchie for The New York TimesIn the past, Mr. Trump has lashed out when feeling cornered, encouraging the violent attack on the Capitol as he contested the results of the 2020 presidential election. That assault on the seat of government demonstrated that Mr. Trump’s most zealous followers were willing to resort to violence on his behalf as he sought to overturn the election results.While the specific charges in the Manhattan case against the former president remain unknown, Mr. Bragg’s case centers on a $130,000 hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels.Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, made the payment in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump later reimbursed him, signing monthly checks while serving as president.Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors appear to have zeroed in on the way Mr. Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, handled the reimbursement to Mr. Cohen. In internal documents, Trump Organization employees falsely recorded the repayments as legal expenses, and the company invented a bogus retainer agreement with Mr. Cohen to justify them.Mr. Cohen, who broke with Mr. Trump in 2018 and later testified before Congress as well as the grand jury that indicted Mr. Trump, has said that the former president knew about the phony legal expenses and retainer agreement.In New York, it can be a crime to falsify business records, and Mr. Bragg’s office is likely to build the case around that charge, according to people with knowledge of the matter and outside legal experts.But to charge falsifying business records as a felony, rather than a misdemeanor, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an effort to commit or conceal a second crime.That second crime could be a violation of election law. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors might argue that the payment to Ms. Daniels represented an illicit contribution to Mr. Trump’s campaign: The money silenced Ms. Daniels, aiding his candidacy at a crucial time.“Campaign finance violations may seem like small potatoes next to possible charges for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, but they also go to the heart of the integrity of the electoral process,” said Jerry H. Goldfeder, a special counsel at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP and a recognized expert in New York state election law.If Mr. Trump were ultimately convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of four years, though prison time would not be mandatory.Yet a conviction is not a sure thing, and Mr. Bragg’s case might apply a legal theory that has yet to be evaluated by judges. A New York Times review of relevant cases and interviews with election law experts strongly suggest that New York State prosecutors have never before filed an election law case involving a federal campaign.An untested case against any defendant, let alone a former president of the United States, carries the risk that a court could throw out or limit the charges.Mr. Trump will not be the first person charged over the hush-money payment. In 2018, Mr. Cohen was federally prosecuted for the payment and pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations.Michael D. Cohen, right, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, will be a crucial witness against him. Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesMr. Cohen is likely to become Mr. Bragg’s star witness at trial. While his past crimes will make him a target for Mr. Trump’s lawyers — who can be expected to attack the former fixer’s credibility at every turn — prosecutors will be likely to counter that Mr. Cohen lied on behalf of Mr. Trump, and that his story has been consistent for years.In a statement, Mr. Cohen said he took “solace in validating the adage that no one is above the law; not even a former president.”His lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, said that “Michael Cohen made the brave decision to speak truth to power and accept the consequences,” and that “he has done so ever since.”Mr. Cohen will not be the prosecution’s only witness: David Pecker, a longtime ally of Mr. Trump and the former publisher of The National Enquirer, testified before the grand jury twice this year. He is likely to be able to corroborate important aspects of Mr. Cohen’s story, including that Mr. Trump wanted to bury embarrassing stories to protect his presidential campaign, not just his family, as his lawyers contend.Soon after Mr. Trump began his campaign in 2015, he hosted Mr. Pecker for a meeting at Trump Tower, during which the publisher agreed to look out for stories that might damage Mr. Trump’s candidacy.One such story arose in the summer of 2016, when Karen McDougal, Playboy’s playmate of the year in 1998, said that she had had an affair with Mr. Trump. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the tabloid, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it, a practice known as “catch and kill.”When Ms. Daniels tried to secure a similar arrangement, Mr. Pecker didn’t take the deal. But he and the tabloid’s former top editor helped broker Mr. Cohen’s payment to Ms. Daniels.Despite the potential legal obstacles, and questions about Mr. Cohen’s credibility, if the case does go to trial, the salacious details could sink Mr. Trump. While white-collar prosecutions are often dry and procedural, this one will likely have some built-in jury appeal: a defendant charged with a seedy crime in a city where he is loathed by many.Any trial is months away. It will take time for Mr. Trump’s lawyers to argue that the case should be thrown out. That timeline raises the extraordinary possibility of a trial unfolding in the thick of the 2024 presidential campaign.The case would come before a jury more than five years after Mr. Cohen’s federal guilty plea prompted the district attorney’s office to open an investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in the hush-money saga. The inquiry began under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who did not seek re-election.Over the years, the investigation expanded to include whether Mr. Trump had lied about his net worth on annual financial statements. Although Mr. Vance’s prosecutors were marching toward an indictment of Mr. Trump for inflating his net worth, soon after Mr. Bragg took office, he developed concerns about proving the case.But he continued to scrutinize Mr. Trump. And in January, a few months after his prosecutors began revisiting the potential hush-money case, Mr. Bragg impaneled the grand jury that has now indicted Mr. Trump.Maggie Haberman More