00:01:47.000Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump was arraigned on a New York Supreme Court indictment returned by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
00:02:01.000Under New York state law is a felony to falsify business records with intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime.
00:02:13.000That is exactly what this case is about.
00:02:17.000Thirty four false statements made to cover up other crimes.
00:02:23.000These are felony crimes in New York state.
00:02:26.000No matter who you are, we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct.
00:02:35.000The defendant repeatedly made false statements on New York business records.
00:02:41.000He also caused others to make false statements.
00:02:45.000The defendant claimed that he was paying Michael Cohen for legal services performed in 2017.
00:03:13.000The defendant held documents in his hand containing this key lie.
00:03:19.000That he was paying Michael Cohen for legal services performed in 2017.
00:03:25.000And he personally signed checks for payments to Michael Cohen for each of these nine months.
00:03:33.000In total, the grand jury found there were 34 documents with this critical false statement.
00:03:42.000Why did Donald Trump repeatedly make these false statements?
00:03:46.000The evidence will show that he did so to cover up crimes relating to the 2016 election.
00:03:53.000Donald Trump, executives at the publishing company American Media Incorporated, Mr. Cohen and others agreed in 2015 to a catch and kill scheme.
00:04:07.000That is a scheme to buy and suppress negative information to help Mr. Trump's chance of winning the election.
00:04:16.000As part of this scheme, Donald Trump and others made three payments to people who claim to have negative information about Mr. Trump.
00:04:26.000To make these payments, they set up shell companies and they made yet more false statements, including, for example, in AMI, American Media Incorporates business records.
00:04:39.000One of the three people that they paid to keep quiet was a woman named Stormy Daniels.
00:04:45.000Less than two weeks before the presidential election, Michael Cohen wired $130,000 to Stormy Daniels' lawyer.
00:04:54.000That payment was to hide damaging information from the voting public.
00:05:03.000The scheme violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.
00:05:12.000The $130,000 wire payment exceeded the federal campaign contribution cap.
00:05:18.000And the false statements in AMI's books violated New York law.
00:05:24.000That is why Mr. Trump made false statements about his payments to Mr. Cohen.
00:05:31.000He could not simply say that the payments were a reimbursement for Mr. Cohen's payments to Sandy to Stormy Daniels.
00:05:41.000To do so, to make that true statement would have been to admit a crime.
00:05:46.000So instead, Mr. Trump said that he was paying Mr. Cohen for fictitious legal services in 2017 to cover up actual crime committed the prior year.
00:06:00.000And in order to get Michael Cohen his money back, they planned one last false statement.
00:06:09.000In order to complete the scheme, they planned to mischaracterize the repayments to Mr. Cohen as income to the New York State tax authorities.
00:06:19.000The conduct I just described and that which was charged by the grand jury is felony criminal conduct in New York State.
00:06:29.000True and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure.
00:06:35.000They are all the more important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world.
00:06:42.000That is why we have a history in the Manhattan DA's office of vigorously enforcing white collar crime.
00:06:48.000My office, including the talented prosecutors you saw at arraignment earlier today, has charged hundreds of felony falsifying business records.
00:06:57.000This charge, it can be said, is the bread and butter of our white collar work.
00:07:03.000And fraud presents itself in all different forms here in Manhattan.
00:07:08.000We have charged falsifying business records for those who violated federal bank secrecy laws.
00:07:14.000We have charged falsifying business records for those who were seeking to cover up sex crimes.
00:07:20.000And we have brought this charge for those who committed tax violations.
00:07:27.000At its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white collar cases.
00:07:35.000Allegations that someone lied again and again to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable.
00:07:45.000As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law.
00:07:57.000No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring American principle.
00:08:18.000Mr. Grant, the indictment says that there were pretty poor false business records.
00:08:26.000And they would then conceal another crime.
00:08:29.000But the indictment does not specifically say what those crimes were.
00:08:34.000We are assuming perhaps that they might be election related.
00:08:37.000I'm wondering if you can specify what laws were also relevant.
00:08:42.000So let me let me say as an initial matter that the indictment doesn't specify that because the law does not so require.
00:08:47.000In my remarks, I mentioned a couple of laws, which I will highlight again now.
00:08:52.000The first is New York State election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.
00:09:02.000I further indicated a number of unlawful means, including more additional false statements, including statements that were planned to be made to tax authorities.
00:09:11.000I also noted the federal election law cap on contribution limits.
00:09:18.000But why weren't there those crimes charged?
00:09:23.000Well, we I'm not going to go into our delivery process on what was brought.
00:09:27.000The charges that were brought were the ones that were brought.
00:09:29.000The evidence in the law is the basis for those decisions.
00:09:32.000You had expressed a year ago that you had some reservations about the case of readiness.
00:09:39.000Can you talk to us about what were some of the questions in your mind that needed to be answered in order to bring a case?
00:09:47.000I'm not going to go chapter and verse into many thinking.
00:09:52.000What I will say is I believe the time period you're talking about.
00:09:55.000I've been in office for a couple of months.
00:09:58.000The investigation, in my view, was not concluded into the conduct in particular that that is the basis for the charges today.
00:10:06.000Since that time, we've had more evidence made available to the office and opportunity to meet with additional witnesses.
00:10:13.000So, as I said earlier, I've been doing this for 24 years.
00:10:18.000I don't bring cases prior to a thorough and rigorous investigation.
00:10:23.000Now, having done so, the case has been brought.
00:10:26.000This is Brad Garrett Hake with NBC News.
00:10:28.000Your predecessor took a hard look at this case and decided not to charge it.
00:10:32.000Federal prosecutors took a hard look at this case and decided not to charge it.
00:10:35.000Do you believe you have new evidence that led you to decide to charge this or why now?
00:10:41.000Well, as I just mentioned, we have had available to the office additional evidence that was not in the office's possession prior to my time here.
00:10:50.000And as to part of your question about the federal, we have a distinct and strong, I would say profound, independent interest in New York State.
00:10:59.000This is the business capital of the world.
00:11:02.000We regularly do cases involving false business statements.
00:11:07.000The bedrock, in fact, the basis for business integrity and a well-functioning business marketplace is true and accurate record-keeping.
00:11:16.000That's the charge of fraud here, falsifying New York State business records.
00:13:00.000As we have CNN over there saying right now, these charges are so weak, so pathetic, so amateurish, that they think it puts in jeopardy all the other ways that come from President Trump.
00:13:20.000It's absolutely insane that the Soros-funded Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, brought the first indictment ever of a former president, a former president who also happens to be the leading presidential candidate of the opposing party.
00:13:36.000And they bring this indictment, and then Alvin Bragg gets up in front of the TV cameras, and the reporters ask him what the legal basis is for his indictment.
00:13:47.000What is the other crime that makes these misdemeanors, these supposed misdemeanors, felonies?
00:13:54.000And Alvin Bragg says he doesn't need to put it in the indictment.
00:13:59.000It's unbelievable to me that he is much dumber than I expected.
00:14:04.000I mean, I don't get stunned very often.
00:14:09.000I was stunned by watching his press conference because he's incredibly dumb, and his indictment is a complete abomination.
00:14:17.000If there were any justice in New York, this judge would throw out this indictment immediately, but we can't expect that because we're dealing with Democrat Party machine-elected bosses in New York City and then Democrat-appointed appellate judges in New York State.
00:14:34.100We haven't had a Republican in, what, 17 years?
00:14:36.180There's no chance that President Trump is going to get a fair hearing with these New York judges or this New York City jury pool or this crazy, dumb, George Soros-funded Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg.
00:15:42.400It could be a whole host of crimes that he can just pull out of thin air at any time.
00:15:47.580That's not how due process works in our country.
00:15:49.660You have to let the defendant know the crimes with which they're charged so they can defend themselves, right?
00:15:55.840And that's just – if that's the New York law, that's unconstitutional.
00:15:59.500That's a violation of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
00:16:03.920And Alvin Bragg, even if he didn't have to include the legal basis in his indictment, which I find mind-boggling, but in New York anything could happen with these left-wing lunatics.
00:16:14.740Why would – if you're bringing this unprecedented indictment of a former president, this indictment based upon a legal theory that your office rejected before you got there at Bragg's urging when he was in the New York Attorney General's office, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney rejected this legal theory.
00:16:34.480The Federal Election Commission rejected this legal theory.
00:16:38.060Alvin Bragg rejected this legal theory until December when Alvin Bragg brought in this Biden Justice Department senior official, Matthew Colangelo, this partisan hack political appointee to bring these Trump charges.
00:16:52.100Why wouldn't Alvin Bragg put in the indictment what the legal basis is for this unprecedented indictment of a former president and potentially future president?
00:17:01.280It's just – it shows incredible lack of legal judgment, prosecutorial discretion by Alvin Bragg.
00:17:07.440It shows that he's a partisan hack, and it shows why George Soros gave him over a million dollars to win this Manhattan DA race.
00:17:54.920So, President – so, at best, if you look at this indictment in the light most favorable to the government, at best, Donald Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels back in 2005, 2006, whenever it was.
00:18:06.620In 2016, President Trump paid $130,000 through his attorney to settle a nuisance claim to make this bembo stripper go away.
00:18:19.260But even if it is a crime in New York because it was put in the wrong category in the books, even if it's a misdemeanor, I don't know how it would be a misdemeanor because Bragg even admitted that the money that was repaid to Michael Cohen, the convicted, perjurer, disbarred attorney, the money that was allegedly repaid by Trump to Michael Cohen, Cohen paid taxes on it.
00:19:04.860We're still beyond the statute of limitations.
00:19:06.560Remember, the Manhattan DA previously declined these charges.
00:19:11.360It is such a bogus legal theory, and they asked Bragg, okay, in order to turn this from a misdemeanor into a felony under New York law, you have to show that the cook in the books was to cover up another crime.
00:19:38.060This whole, all these backflips have been doing on cable TV for the last four or five weeks, right, about what was the jujitsu he did to get to the other crime.
00:19:47.420That's specifically what he did not put in the indictment, and he refused to answer it when the first reporter – you could tell.
00:19:56.240The legal press in the room was in shock about how light this was.
00:20:00.180That's where the guy asked the first question.
00:20:04.400Are you telling me that that's what Alan Bragg looked in the camera and said, well, I'm not required to put him in here?
00:20:09.620He said that, and I mean, it's stunning to me that a prosecutor does not have to put the legal basis for an indictment in the indictment.
00:20:20.340That doesn't make sense under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
00:20:24.920But again, even if that's somehow the case, which I doubt it is because Alvin Bragg seems like the dumbest attorney I've ever seen on TV,
00:20:31.740but even if that is the case, why would he not show good judgment, prosecutorial discretion and just good legal judgment and political judgment
00:20:40.120and have an airtight case against a former president and potentially a future president of the United States
00:20:45.980before you bring an unprecedented indictment based upon a bogus legal theory that his office, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office,
00:20:54.680the Federal Election Commission and Bragg himself previously declined to prosecute.
00:20:58.920The other things he's talking about, New York State election law, President Trump was running for a federal office, correct?
00:21:06.340Isn't the federal election law is the one that you've got to look to?