Former President Donald Trump was photographed exiting his “Trump Force One” aircraft and, later, entering Trump Tower on Monday afternoon ahead of his expected court appearance in New York City this week.
The former president departed Palm Beach International Airport in south Florida en route to New York hours earlier. Shortly after Trump’s motorcade left the airport, he was pictured waving to crowds outside Trump Tower in New York City before entering the building where he maintains a residence.
Trump is slated to appear before a New York judge on Tuesday for an arraignment hearing. Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury Thursday evening as part of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s years-long investigation into his alleged hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
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Trump’s lawyers, though, said Sunday that they expected to file a motion to dismiss all charges stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation.
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“We will take the indictment. We will dissect it. The team will look at every, every potential issue that we will be able to challenge, and we will challenge. And of course, I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming because there’s no law that fits this,” Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina told CNN.
“And you have a situation where, you know, the federal government, the Department of Justice, turned this matter down,” Tacopina added. “The FEC, which governs federal election laws, said there’s no violation here. Yet somehow a state prosecutor has taken a misdemeanor and tried cobble together to make it a felony by alleging a violation of federal campaign violations. And the FEC said that doesn’t exist.”
Hush money payments made to both McDougal and Daniels were revealed and reported by Fox News in 2018. Those payments had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission.
However, federal prosecutors opted against charging Trump in the case.
Fox News Digital reporter Houston Keene contributed to this report.