34-Count Indictment Claims Trump Committed Felonies While President

by Sharon Rondeau

(Apr. 4, 2023) — As posted by DC_Draino on TruthSocial Tuesday afternoon, the anticipated 34-count grand-jury indictment purportedly signed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses 45th President and leading Republican 2024 candidate Donald J. Trump of “falsifying business records in the first degree” during the year 2017, when Trump was serving his first of four years in the Oval Office and not running the Trump Organization, which the indictment states “kept and maintained” the records.

At 2:15 p.m., Trump was formally arraigned on the indictment, which had been “sealed” but the contents leaked to the media, a development Trump pointed out prior to his arrival at the courthouse.

The New York statute stated in each count is Penal Law §175.10, “Falsifying business records in the first degree,” which states:

A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.

Falsifying business records in the first degree is a class E felony.

Each count of the indictment invokes similar wording pertaining to the months of 2017, when former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen reportedly received reimbursement for the $130,000 he paid to a lawyer for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels as part of a non-disclosure agreement in 2016.

The indictment repeatedly claims Trump personally “made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise, to wit,….” naming no other defendants.

In his post, DC_Draino, who is an attorney, observed:

I’m seeing a very alarming pattern – every single “crime” was committed after President Trump was sworn into office

He wasn’t running his business – he was running the country!

So who actually did all this?!

Legal commentators on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” Tuesday afternoon, including former Assistant District Attorney Andrew McCarthy, opined that the indictment fails to state a crime or the necessary specifics required for Trump to mount a defense.

“The story is incoherent,” McCarthy said at 4:47 p.m. “…these arrangements were cut or made days before the 2016 election” and, he said, not required to have been disclosed until 2017, hence apparently detracting from any presumed connection to a campaign-finance violation.