Donald Trump and his family were reportedly caught off-guard by the twice-impeached former president’s indictment last week, as The Hill notes. According to New York Times reporter and longtime Trump scribe/ political news expert Maggie Haberman, the announcement of the indictment left Trump, 76, “extremely angry” and his family members “rattled.”
In an interview with The Times‘ “The Morning” newsletter, Haberman said, “While Trump is not said to be throwing things, he is extremely angry and his family is, not surprisingly, rattled.”
Last week, the politician made headlines after being historically indicted by a Manhattan grand jury that investigated a hush money payment made during his 2016 campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels. This, as written by CNN, marks the “first time in American history” that a current or former president has “faced criminal charges.” In the indictment, he faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud.
Donald Trump's Legal Team Surprised By Indictment
While sitting down with The Times, Haberman explained that Trump’s legal team was surprised by the news of the indictment. This, she added, was after reports surfaced that the grand jury in that case would break for one month.
"One is the political front, which I’d say they were most prepared on," Haberman said. "Another is the legal front, which is messy because his team has had a lot of infighting, and there’s finger pointing about why they were so caught off guard," she went on.
Trump pleaded not guilty on April 4, 2023 to 34 felony counts of "falsifying business records in the first degree," the Times notes, all of which are "tied to the former president’s role" in the hush-money payment to Daniels.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office accused Trump of "orchestrating a broader scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election" by purchasing damaging stories about him to keep them under wraps, according to one of the prosecutors, Chris Conroy.
As Conroy said at Trump's arraignment, "The defendant, Donald J. Trump, falsified New York business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election."
Other Criminal Investigations Trump Is Facing
This investigation, Haberman pointed out, is not the only criminal one that Trump faces. The Hill writes that he is being investigated at the "federal level for his handling of classified information and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election," while also facing other state-level probes. Haberman said that the precedent-setting indictment in New York could also "open the dam for other charges to follow."
"All the prosecutors were concerned about being first with a historical precedent," Haberman said. She continued, "And now there is a broken seal of sorts. That said, Republicans who dislike Trump are saying privately they wish this case wasn’t first because they view it as more trivial than the others."
