News of indictment catches Trump and his team off
guard
Sources say ex-president and aides believed
prosecutors were reconsidering action and were taken by surprise by
announcement
Hugo Lowell
@hugolowell
Fri 31 Mar 2023
07.30 BST
Donald
Trump and his top advisers were caught flat-footed by the news of his
indictment by the Manhattan grand jury over hush money payments to the adult
film star Stormy Daniels, having expected no charges until at least the end of
April and potentially never at all.
The former
president reckoned – along with his aides – that recent reporting about the
grand jury taking a break from next week meant prosecutors in the district
attorney’s office were reconsidering whether to seek an indictment over the
matter.
But that
optimism proved to be misplaced when Trump was alerted at Mar-a-Lago to the
indictment by his advisers, some of whom had decided to return to Washington
after growing tired of waiting with him for several weeks for charges to
materialize.
The former
president issued a pugilistic statement in response to the news and lashed out
at the prosecution as political and an effort to hurt his 2024 presidential
campaign, before appearing for dinner as usual alongside the other guests at
this Florida resort.
But in
private, Trump was more subdued as he took in the significance of becoming the
first sitting or former president to be charged and the changed reality of
operating under the threat of an eventual criminal trial, several sources close
to him said.
The private
response showed that for all his outward bravado – including claims that he
wanted to be arrested and handcuffed for a “perp walk” because he wanted to
project defiance if he was ever indicted – deep down, Trump has always feared
the prospect of being criminally charged and its consequences.
The charges
remain sealed, but are expected to touch on $130,000 that Trump made to Daniels
through his then lawyer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 elections
campaign. Trump later reimbursed Cohen with $35,000 checks, and Cohen pleaded
guilty in 2018 to federal charges over the money.
Trump’s
mood towards the hush money investigation has fluctuated in recent weeks – from
criticising the prospect of criminal charges, to growing impatient and insisting
they should charge him already, and then going back to attacking the
investigation with vehemence.
After the
first rally of his 2024 campaign in Texas, Trump told an NBC News reporter he
was not frustrated by the case despite appearing quite frustrated.
“I’m not
frustrated by it. It’s a fake investigation,” Trump said. “This is fake news,
and NBC is one of the worst. Don’t ask me any more questions.”
Trump
became more optimistic this week, believing – based on no actual evidence –
that reports about the grand jury taking a break for most of April could mean
the district attorney was having doubts about prosecuting the hush money case
and that it was “all over”.
Some of
Trump’s advisers took that as an opportunity to get out of Palm Beach, where
they had been waiting with him for weeks for an indictment to arrive.
Shortly
after 5pm on Thursday, his 2024 campaign advisers learned from a New York Times
alert that Trump had been indicted, catching them off guard in part because
they assumed they would hear about it first from the Trump lawyers, who had
themselves assumed they would confidentially hear it first from prosecutors.
Though
Trump had indicated that he expected to be one of the first people to be told
if he was charged in the hush money case, the sources said, when the news
actually arrived, Trump appears to have been one of the very last people to
find out.
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