Donald Trump indicted over hush money to porn star!!
text_fieldsNew York: Former United States President Donald Trump got indicted by a New York grand jury on Thursday over hush money payments to a porn star during the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections.
The motion has made Trump the first former or sitting president to be charged with a criminal offence, Agence France-Presse reported.
The 76-year-old, who is eying another term on president's chair, keeps denying all the charges under the historic indictment but his chances in the presidential race are certainly blown, AFP writes.
He had survived two impeachments, the case of the US Capitol riot, missing classified files etc., but got trapped in court over a sex scandal.
Trump's lawyers were contacted by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office on Thursday evening to coordinate the ex-premier's surrender for arraignment in New York.
Responding to the motion, Trump called it political persecution and election interference. He raged at prosecutors and the Democrats, wowing that the motion would backfire on Joe Biden, his successor.
Trump's allies and sons also denounced the indictment, alleging that it is a vendetta intending to derail his 2024 campaign.
An attorney for Stormy Daniels, the 44-year-old porn actress involved in the Trump sex scandal, said that no one is above the law. He said that the indictment is no cause for joy and to let the truth and justice prevail. '
Indian-American Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy have claimed that former US president Donald Trump's indictment in a criminal case was about "revenge" and said it was a "dark day" in the history of the country, PTI reported.
In an interview with Fox News, Haley said, "From everything I've seen from this New York district attorney, this would be something he'd be doing for political points. And I think what we know is when you get into political prosecutions like this, it's more about revenge than it is about justice".
"It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals. Principles go beyond partisanship. The American people should decide who governs, not politically ambitious prosecutors," Ramaswamy said.
The sex scandal case involves Trump paying the actress Daniels $130,000 weeks before the 2016 elections to stop her from going public about a private session the duo had a decade before.