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He will be fingerprinted. He will be photographed. He may even be handcuffed.
If he surrenders Tuesday, Donald Trump is expected to walk through the routine steps of felony (serious crime) arrest processing in New York now that a grand jury has formally charged him in connection with his role in a hush-money payment to an adult film star. But the unprecedented arrest of a former commander in chief will be anything but routine.
Accommodations may be made for Trump. While it is standard for defendants arrested on felony charges to be handcuffed, it is unclear whether an exception will be made for a former president. Most defendants are cuffed behind their backs, but some white-collar defendants deemed to pose less danger have their hands secured in front of them.
Trump will almost certainly be accompanied at every step – from the moment he is taken into custody until his appearance before a judge in lower Manhattan’s imposing Criminal Courts Building – by armed agents of the US Secret Service. They are required by law to protect him at all times.
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Security in the courthouse is provided by state court officers, with whom the Secret Service has worked in the past. But the chief spokesperson for the federal agency, Anthony Guglielmi, said he could not comment on measures that would be put in place for Trump.
It may take several days for Trump to appear at the courthouse. Now that the grand jury (which determines whether there is enough evidence to prosecute a person) has voted to indict him – meaning to charge him with felony crimes – the indictment will remain sealed until his expected arraignment Tuesday, when the charges will be formally revealed.
After the indictment, prosecutors contacted Trump’s defence lawyers and negotiated the terms of his surrender, a common practice in white-collar investigations.
[ Donald Trump’s indictment throws US politics up in the air ]
Lawyers for Trump, who is running for president a third time, said late Thursday that he will surrender and he is expected to be arraigned Tuesday.
After he is arraigned, he is almost certain to be released on his own recognisance, because the indictment will likely contain only nonviolent felony charges; under New York law, prosecutors cannot request that a defendant be held on bail in such cases.
The former president is already using the charges as part of a campaign strategy to energise his base.
Surrender is not in the confrontational former president’s DNA, and he often seems to relish antagonising and attacking prosecutors who have investigated him, such as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who secured Thursday’s indictment. He has called Bragg, who is Black, “a racist” and an “animal” and said that his investigation was politically motivated.
In the unlikely event that the former president refuses to surrender, Gov Ron DeSantis of Florida has already said that his state “will not assist in an extradition request,” should one come from New York authorities. Still, if the New York prosecutors were to actually seek Trump’s extradition, and DeSantis attempted to protect his Republican rival, he could possibly face legal action himself.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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