FILE -
President
Donald
Trump
speaks
at his
Mar-a-Lago
estate
on Jan.
3, 2019,
in Palm
Beach,
Fla.
Trump
said in
a social
media
post
that he
expects
to be
arrested
Tuesday
as a New
York
prosecutor
is
eyeing
charges
in a
case
examining
hush
money
paid to
women
who
alleged
sexual
encounters
with the
former
president.
Trump
provided
no
evidence
that
suggested
he was
directly
informed
of a
pending
arrest
and did
not say
how he
knew of
such
plans.
(AP
Photo/
Evan
Vucci,
File) |
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In Trump
case, NY
grand
jury
appears
near end
of its
work
By ERIC
TUCKER
and
MICHAEL
R. SISAK
apnews.com
NEW YORK
- A New
York
grand
jury
investigating
Donald
Trump
over a
hush
money
payment
to a
porn
star
appears
poised
to
complete
its work
soon as
law
enforcement
officials
make
preparations
for
possible
unrest
in the
event of
an
indictment.
Trump
over the
weekend
claimed
without
any
evidence
that he
would be
arrested
on
Tuesday,
with his
representatives
later
saying
he was
citing
media
reports
and
leaks.
There
was no
indication
that
prediction
would
come
true,
though
the
grand
jury
appeared
to take
an
important
step
forward
by
hearing
Monday
from a
witness
favorable
to
Trump,
presumably
so
prosecutors
could
ensure
the
panel
had a
chance
to
consider
any
testimony
that
could be
remotely
seen as
exculpatory.
The next
steps in
a grand
jury
process
shrouded
in
secrecy
remained
unclear,
and it
was
uncertain
if
additional
witnesses
might be
summoned.
But a
city
mindful
of the
riot by
Trump
loyalists
at the
U.S.
Capitol
more
than two
years
ago took
steps to
gird
itself
from any
violence
that
could
accompany
the
unprecedented
prosecution
of a
former
president,
while
fellow
Republicans
eyeing
the 2024
presidential
nomination
sized up
how an
indictment
might
upend
the
race.
The
testimony
from
Robert
Costello,
a lawyer
with
close
ties to
numerous
key
Trump
aides,
appeared
to be a
final
opportunity
for
allies
of the
former
president
to steer
the
grand
jury
away
from an
indictment.
He was
invited
by
prosecutors
to
appear
after
saying
that he
had
information
to
undercut
the
credibility
of
Michael
Cohen, a
former
lawyer
and
fixer
for
Trump
who
later
turned
against
him and
then
became a
key
witness
in the
Manhattan
district
attorney’s
investigation.
Costello
had
provided
Cohen
legal
services
several
years
ago
after
Cohen
himself
became
entangled
in the
federal
investigation
into the
hush
money
payments.
In a
news
conference
after
his
grand
jury
appearance,
Costello
told
reporters
that he
had come
forward
because
he did
not
believe
Cohen,
who
pleaded
guilty
to
federal
crimes
and
served
time in
prison,
could be
trusted.
“If they
want to
go after
Donald
Trump
and they
have
solid
evidence,
then so
be it,”
Costello
said.
“But
Michael
Cohen is
far from
solid
evidence.”
Responding
to
Costello’s
claims
on MSNBC
later
Monday,
Cohen
said
that
Costello
was
never
his
lawyer
and “he
lacks
any
sense of
veracity.”
There
were no
clear
signs
that
Costello’s
testimony
had
affected
the
course
of the
investigation.
Cohen
had been
available
for over
two
hours in
case
prosecutors
wanted
him to
rebut
Costello’s
testimony
but was
told he
was not
needed,
his
attorney
said
Monday.
The
testimony
came two
days
after
Trump
said he
expected
to face
criminal
charges
and
urged
supporters
to
protest
his
possible
arrest.
In a
series
of
social
media
posts
through
the
weekend,
the
Republican
former
president
criticized
the New
York
investigation,
directing
particularly
hostile
rhetoric
toward
Manhattan
District
Attorney
Alvin
Bragg, a
Democrat.
New York
officials
have
been
monitoring
online
chatter
of
threats
of
varying
specificity,
and even
as
portable
metal
barricades
were
dropped
off to
safeguard
streets
and
sidewalks,
there
were no
immediate
signs
that
Trump’s
calls
for
protests
were
being
heeded.
Costello
briefly
acted as
a legal
adviser
to Cohen
after
the FBI
raided
Cohen’s
home and
apartment
in 2018.
At the
time,
Cohen
was
being
investigated
for both
tax
evasion
and for
payments
he
helped
orchestrate
in 2016
to buy
the
silence
of two
women
who
claimed
to have
had
sexual
encounters
with
Trump.
For
several
months,
it was
unclear
whether
Cohen, a
longtime
lawyer
and
fixer
for the
Trump
Organization
who once
boasted
that he
would
“take a
bullet”
for his
boss,
would
remain
loyal to
the
president.
Cohen
ultimately
decided
to plead
guilty
in
connection
with the
payments
to porn
actor
Stormy
Daniels
and
model
Karen
McDougal,
which he
said
were
directed
by
Trump.
Since
then, he
has been
a
vociferous
Trump
critic,
testifying
before
Congress
and then
to the
Manhattan
grand
jury.
Trump,
who has
denied
having
sex with
either
woman,
has
branded
Cohen a
liar.
Costello
broke
with
Cohen
before
he
pleaded
guilty,
after it
became
clear he
was no
longer
in
Trump’s
camp.
In the
years
since,
Costello,
a
veteran
New York
attorney,
has
represented
Trump
allies
including
his
former
political
strategist
Steve
Bannon
and his
personal
lawyer
Rudy
Giuliani.
Even as
the New
York
investigation
pushes
toward
conclusion,
Trump
faces
criminal
probes
in
Atlanta
and
Washington
that,
taken
together,
pose
significant
legal
peril
and
carry
the
prospect
of
upending
a
Republican
presidential
race in
which
Trump
remains
a
leading
contender.
Some of
his
likely
opponents
have
tried to
strike a
balance
between
condemning
a
potential
prosecution
as
politically
motivated
while
avoiding
condoning
the
conduct
at
issue.
Florida
Gov. Ron
DeSantis,
an
expected
GOP
presidential
candidate,
criticized
the
investigation
but also
threw
one of
his
first
jabs at
the
former
president
in a
move
likely
to
intensify
their
simmering
political
rivalry.
“I don’t
know
what
goes
into
paying
hush
money to
a porn
star to
secure
silence
over
some
kind of
alleged
affair,”
DeSantis
said at
a news
conference
in
Panama
City. “I
can’t
speak to
that.”
But, he
added,
“what I
can
speak to
is that
if you
have a
prosecutor
who is
ignoring
crimes
happening
every
single
day in
his
jurisdiction
and he
chooses
to go
back
many,
many
years
ago to
try to
use
something
about
porn
star
hush
money
payments,
that’s
an
example
of
pursuing
a
political
agenda
and
weaponizing
the
office.
And I
think
that’s
fundamentally
wrong.”
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