Donald Trump invited to testify before Manhattan grand jury, lawyer says
hush money payment to a former porn star.
Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina confirmed the prosecutor’s offer as a decision loomed whether to bring criminal charges against the former president.
“To me, it’s much ado about nothing,” Tacopina told the Associated Press, adding he didn’t think prosecutors had committed “one way or another” on a decision on whether to charge Trump.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alan Bragg declined to comment Thursday. The invitation to testify was first reported by The New York Times.
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Late last year, Bragg’s office injected new life into the long-running investigation that appeared to be stalled after the resignations of two prosecutors leading the criminal investigation.
Authorities had been investigating the 2016 payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, which former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has described as falsely disguised as a legal expense to aid the former president’s campaign.
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While Trump was not charged in the case and did not appear in the courtroom during the trial, the former president’s namesake Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation were found guilty on charges that included conspiracy, a scheme to defraud, and criminal tax fraud with the companies facing maximum penalties of $1.6 million.
Bragg characterized the verdicts as “consequential,” and, invoking the slogan he has attached to the office, “underscores that here in Manhattan we have one standard of justice for all.”
In Georgia, authorities also are moving closer to a decision on whether to bring criminal charges against Trump and his allies in a wide-ranging investigation into interference in the 2020 presidential election.
President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and the unauthorized retention of classified documents at his Florida estate.