Law enforcement agencies prepare for a possible Trump indictment as early as next week
Local, state and federal law enforcement and security agencies are preparing for the possibility that former President Donald Trump will be indicted as early as next week, according to five senior officials familiar with the preparations.
Law enforcement agencies are conducting preliminary security assessments, the officials said, and are discussing potential security plans in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court, at 100 Centre Street, in case Trump is charged in connection with an alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and travels to New York to face any charges.
The officials stress that the interagency conversations and planning are precautionary in nature because no charges have been filed.
The agencies involved include the NYPD, New York State Court Officers, the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the officials said.
NBC News has reached out to all of those agencies for comment, and all have declined to comment.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, pleaded guilty in 2018 to a federal charge relating to a $130,000 payment to Daniels, an adult film star, in the closing days of the 2016 campaign. Daniels has said the money was to keep her quiet about her claim that she’d slept with the married Trump in 2006, an allegation Trump denies.
Cohen has said that Trump ordered him to pay the hush money and that it was for the “principal purpose of influencing” the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen was later repaid the money he’d shelled out to Daniels through payments that were listed by Trump’s company as “legal fees.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is investigating Trump for felony falsification of business records. Cohen testified before the grand jury hearing evidence in the case for a second time Wednesday.