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A Manhattan grand jury will proceed listening to proof Monday within the Trump hush-money investigation.
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A closing witness should testify earlier than the panel can deliberate after which vote on a attainable indictment.
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Monday is now the earliest Trump may very well be indicted, although the fees would instantly be sealed.
A attainable Donald Trump “hush-money” indictment is on maintain till a closing witness testifies earlier than a Manhattan grand jury on Monday afternoon.
“There is one more witness,” a supply with information of the investigation instructed Insider on Saturday evening.
The supply spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to disclose particulars of the grand jury proceedings.
The supply declined to determine the witness, whose testimony will cap a two-month grand jury presentation by prosecutors beneath District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
A separate supply, who additionally spoke on situation of anonymity, instructed Insider that the witness will not be Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former CFO, who is serving a five-month sentence for admittedly masterminding a payroll tax-dodge scheme on the Trump Organization.
News of a Monday grand jury witness was first reported by CNN.
Former Trump legal professional and “fixer” Michael Cohen — the prosecution’s star witness for his admitted role in wiring the illegal $130,000 payment to grownup movie actress Stormy Daniels, days earlier than the 2016 election — has instructed reporters he anticipated to be the grand jury’s closing witness when he testified final Monday and Wednesday.
The shock closing witness offers an up to date clue to the timing of a attainable indictment of Trump and of any co-defendants.
The grand jury, which meets in secret in a decrease Manhattan workplace constructing, solely gathers to listen to testimony throughout three-hour afternoon periods on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Its members — anyplace from 16 to 23 in quantity — might conceivably attain a vote by the tip of Monday’s three-hour session.
But that might be unlikely. Experts who’ve described the Manhattan grand jury process to Insider say there are a number of steps between the ultimate testimony and the vote.
Once testimony concludes, prosecutors will “charge” the jury, that means undergo the potential counts on a cost sheet one after the other, explaining every depend within the potential indictment.
Sources have instructed Insider they expect the top count to be falsifying business records in the first degree, a low-level felony that might allege that Trump and some other co-defendant falsified paperwork in an effort to conceal one other crime, equivalent to omitting the $130,000 from marketing campaign monetary statements.
Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing or having an affair with Daniels, and has known as the prosecution a “Scam, Injustice, Mockery, and a Complete and Total Weaponization of Law Enforcement in order to affect a Presidential Election!”
Once the cost has ended, the prosecutor, court docket officer, and stenographer depart the room, and the grand jurors start deliberating.
If 12 or extra attain a vote to indict, the foreperson can be given the hard-copy indictment to signal, at which level the previous president would formally, although secretly, be beneath indictment.
That hard-copy indictment would then be walked over to a close-by clerk’s workplace, the place it’s filed beneath seal. It can be unsealed at Trump’s arraignment, although Bragg might ask a decide to unseal it early, given the nice public curiosity.
It’s a variety of exercise to suit into three hours; if the method is incomplete, the grand jurors might return on Wednesday afternoon to maintain working.
Trump had “Truthed” earlier Saturday that he “will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,” telling supporters “Protest, take our nation back!” But that timing, already disputed by his attorney, might by no means have labored given the brand new closing witness.
The panel has to this point heard from a gentle stream of witnesses, including Cohen. Former Trump advisors Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway have also appeared.
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