A senior Obama administration official said on Sunday that it is a crime to disseminate rumors that Donald Trump has been detained.
Upon hearing that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has filed approximately 30 corporate fraud charges against him, former U.S. representative and federal counsel John Ratcliffe responded angrily.
The only criminal we can be positive will come out of this Alvin Bragg case in New York is a crime done by DA Bragg or someone on the grand jury that he’s using for this perversion of our judicial system,” Ratcliffe told “Sunday Morning Futures” anchor Maria Bartiromo.
What about the past, though? He claimed that for the past three days, “the American people have been talking about allegedly 30 or 34 criminal charges,” the specifics of which are known only to the grand jury or Alvin Bragg’s employees and to neither Donald Trump nor his attorneys.
Both CNN and NBC News reported Thursday that “two sources familiar with the matter” have confirmed that Trump is the first ex-president to be charged with a felony. According to the media, he faces charges for roughly 30 offenses.
The allegations “centered on” the evidence of hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina told ABC News on Sunday, without providing further specifics.
Former Harvard law scholar Alan Dershowitz expressed concern about illegal disclosures like those mentioned by Ratcliffe on OANN. According to Dershowitz, violators of this law in New York face up to five years in prison.
Trump is a three-time presidential candidate. He claims he is the victim of “political persecution” and insists he has done nothing wrong.
Bragg, a Democrat, ordered the Republicans to back off and “let the criminal justice process go forward without illegal political interference” after they launched an investigation and requested his employees for documents and statements.
Prosecutor Tricia Bragg’s office released a brief statement on Thursday saying that she and her staff had discussed the possibility of extraditing Trump to the United States to face charges.
The Trump re-election campaign announced on Sunday that Trump would make an address from Mar-a-Lago that evening, despite the fact that his trial would begin the following day in New York.