Trump pleads not guilty to 34-count indictment!

NEW YORK (PNN) - April 4, 2023 - President Donald J. Trump pleaded not guilty in New York on April 4 to an unprecedented bogus indictment brought by fascist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

News of the indictment on March 30 set off several days of media mania that culminated on April 4 in coverage of Trump’s motorcade ride through his beloved hometown en route to voluntarily surrender himself at the offices of New York County District Attorney Bragg and hear the bogus charges against him at the New York Supreme Court.

In a return to the saga that began shortly after he won the 2016 election, the district attorney charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to a payment for a non-disclosure agreement signed by adult entertainment actress Stormy Daniels and Trump’s then-attorney, Michael Cohen.

The Manhattan indictment is the latest, most dramatic episode in what he and his supporters – and the vast majority of the country and people in the world - see as the weaponization of government against a political opponent.

The bogus charges by Bragg, a Democrat elected in a deep blue county, are a particular fit for the pattern because the district attorney has only recently directed his office to not prosecute certain armed robberies, burglaries, prostitution, and drug offenses.

The charges against Trump all cite the same statute: New York State Statute 175.10, falsifying business records in the first degree. Each of the 34 counts deals with the paper trail related to the payments that a Trump entity made to Cohen, including business ledger entries, invoices, and checks.

In a news conference after the arraignment hearing, Bragg alleged that Trump falsified business records with an intent to cover up state- and federal-level crimes related to campaign contributions. Those alleged crimes, according to Bragg, included payments to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a model who received a payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story about an unproven claim of an affair with Trump.

Trump has previously said that the payments weren’t made with campaign funds. The indictment doesn’t offer any evidence of Trump paying McDougal.

Trump’s attorneys, speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, said the case is unprecedented not only because it concerns a president, but for other reasons as well.

“A state prosecutor is prosecuting a federal election law violation that doesn’t exist according to federal election law officials,” said Joe Tacopina, one of three Trump attorneys who attended the hearing.

The judge, Juan Merchan, didn’t set a trial date. The prosecutors asked for the trial to take place in January 2024 and Trump’s attorneys requested April 2024. Bragg’s office will have 65 days to file discovery materials. The defense will have until Aug. 8 to file all pretrial motions.

Trump’s attorneys have already indicated that they’ll file a motion to dismiss the case.