Former President Donald Trump — now indicted for allegedly attempting to block the peaceful transfer of power after his loss in the 2020 presidential election — has three pending criminal cases against him, including one in the Big Apple.
Trump was first indicted in Manhattan in April, when a grand jury levied 31 charges of falsifying business records against the ex-president for his alleged hush money scheme involving porn star Stormy Daniels.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg drew the wrath of Trump defenders everywhere, but the indictment itself now pales in comparison to the gravity of the charges in the federal case that Special Counsel Jack Smith unsealed Tuesday.
The most recent indictment against Trump, who is once again running for president, has him charged in a four-count indictment for allegedly attempting to block the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the election in 2020, despite knowing that current-President Joe Biden had been victorious.
As the legal issues related to the newest indictment play out, Trump will also be dealing with different criminal charges in Manhattan — and the two cases happening concurrently may affect the timeline of the judicial process in the Big Apple. As a result, prosecutors said, Trump’s Manhattan case may now be delayed to accommodate the new federal trial.
The Manhattan case is scheduled to begin on March 25, 2024 — though Bragg has suggested that it could be moved, if needed.
“We will take a broad look at what justice requires,” Bragg said in an interview with WNYC radio last week.
“Ultimately, the judges set the trial schedule,” he said, suggesting that the case could be moved, if the judges in Trump’s various cases determine it necessary. “We’ll see what happens to the schedule. We have a firm trial date, our judge has been clear about that. But based upon experience… I’ve been a federal prosecutor, a state prosecutor and now obviously local… in matters like this, judges will confer.”
Local Republicans quiet
To little surprise, reaction around the country to Trump’s indictment for allegedly interrupting the peaceful transfer of power was skewed by politics. Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans supported the indictment; pro-Trump Republicans and die-hard MAGA supporters, however, claimed the case was a political vendetta.
The two Republicans who are part of New York City’s Congressional delegation, however, have been mum on the Trump indictment.
As of Thursday morning, Congress Member Nicole Malliotakis — the lone Republican repping a district located entirely within New York City — did not make any references to the indictment on her social media pages, and has not responded to requests for comment on the situation.
After Joe Biden was projected as the 2020 presidential election in November of that year — and as Trump amped up his claims of a “rigged” election — Malliotakis initially sided with Trump in refusing to acknowledge the results, THE CITY reported. Her initial hesitance, she claimed to the news outlet, was due to a belief that “the rule changes and the ability for people to use absentee ballots more freely” required full counting of all ballots, adding: “And so I think the president wants to make sure that the legal ballots are counted and those that are illegitimate are not.”
Hours after the Trump mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Malliotakis — though she condemned the violence — was one of 147 House Republicans to vote against the certification of electoral votes from states that Trump lost over the election fraud allegations the then-president made — which the indictment charged was part of his conspiracy to remain in power despite having lost the 2020 election.
On July 26 of this year, Malliotakis did tweet that “NO ONE is above the law!” — but that was in reference to the rejected plea deal for Hunter Biden, the president’s son, for a case which has no proven link to President Biden other than the fact that the president happens to be Hunter’s father.
Big News! The judge REJECTED Hunter's sweetheart deal. We're one step closer to holding the Bidens accountable for:
✔️Creating 20+ shell companies while Biden was VP
✔️Receiving $10M from foreign nationals
✔️Failing to pay MILLIONS in federal taxesNO ONE is above the law! pic.twitter.com/ozAtBy3sl1
— Office of Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (@RepMalliotakis) July 26, 2023
The other Republican member of the NYC Congressional Delegation, the indicted, admitted liar George Santos, also has not made a public statement about the Trump indictment.
‘The most serious and consequential’ indictment yet
On the Democratic side, there was universal condemnation of Trump following Tuesday’s indictment.
Senator Chuck Schumer and Congress Member Hakeem Jeffries, who lead the Democratic Party in the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, joined together to lament the events of Jan. 6, 2020, when pro-Trump protesters invaded the nation’s Capitol Building during the certification of the election in a flailing attempt to keep their preferred candidate in office.
“The insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 was one of the saddest and most infamous days in American history, personally orchestrated by Donald Trump and fueled by his insidious Big Lie in an attempt to undermine the 2020 election,” the pols said in a joint statement. “In a deadly effort to overturn the will of the American people and block the peaceful transition of power, our nation’s Capitol — the very symbol and home of American patriotism and democracy — fell under attack to thousands of vicious and violent rioters.”
“This indictment is the most serious and most consequential thus far and will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the United States, is above the law.”
Congress Member Jerry Nadler added praise for the special prosecutor appointed to the case, Jack Smith, for his work investigating Trump.
“Special Counsel Jack Smith has outlined an astonishingly detailed case. Trump will have his day in court. That’s how the system works. And all of the noise MAGA Republicans make between now and then is deliberately designed to undermine that system,” Nadler wrote in a social media post.
Brooklyn Congress Member Yvette Clarke similarly praised Smith’s work, and vowed to maintain the rule of law.
“Today’s indictment makes clear that the bipartisan Jan. 6 Select Committee helped create a roadmap to justice for our institutions responsible for upholding the rule of law,” she wrote. “No one is above the law – including Donald Trump.”
Freshman legislator Dan Goldman, who represents lower Manhattan and northern Brooklyn, pinpointed the legal issues that led to Trump’s indictment.
“The First Amendment protects Donald Trump if he simply makes knowingly false statements about election fraud,” Goldman said on Twitter. “The First Amendment does not protect Donald Trump if he corruptly attempts to persuade, coerce or direct others to ACT on his knowingly false beliefs.”
