OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump appeared in Manhattan on Tuesday for his arraignment in the case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges regarding allegations that he falsified business records related to adult film star Stormy Daniels’ hush-money case. Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in hush money payments to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, allegedly to keep Daniels quiet about an affair the two of them had in 2006.
Cameras were only briefly allowed in the courtroom on Tuesday to take a few pictures of Trump and the gallery before the arraignment began.
Jake Gibson, the network’s producer for federal law enforcement coverage, told Fox News that “former President Trump definitely glared at the DA Bragg when he left” and “sought Bragg out to stare him down.”
“Mr. Trump walked in, the former President Trump walked in, he seemed to have a bit of a swagger. He looked stoic, he looked stone-faced. He pled not guilty, said ‘not guilty.’ Very interestingly, the prosecution wants this to go to trial in January of 2024. You know what else is in January of 2024? Primary season for the presidential election. Former President Trump’s team didn’t want to have anything to do with that,” Gibson began.
After noting that the next hearing is scheduled for December 4 in Manhattan, Gibson spoke about Trump giving Bragg a “strong glare.”
“I think it’s worth noting — I think I brought it up already, but I may not have, that President Trump, former President Trump definitely glared at D.A. Bragg when he left. He seemed to get up, looked around the room — you know, because he walked in — Trump was the last one to walk in the hearing. This was pretty intense. I mean, it’s not a huge room, but there’s probably 50 reporters in there,” he said.
“There were 15, 20, 25 law enforcement officials that were on the end of each row, so we couldn’t really see that well because they’re standing up in front, so we can’t really see up there. You just — what you really saw well is him enter the room and leave the room. There was Secret Service agents, there were the court police, there were just a lot of police in there and they were very strict with the press, you know, ‘We will kick you out of here. We see a phone, we’ll kick you out.’ People would try to sit up a little bit to look, ‘Sit down.’ This was a very serious — you know, it was very intense in there,” he added.
WATCH:
Federal Law Enforcement Producer Jake Gibson: "Former President Trump definitely glared at the DA Bragg when he left." pic.twitter.com/v2IyTntozI
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 4, 2023
The maximum prison sentence for Trump is astronomical when all of the counts against him are added together.
The maximum prison sentence he faces if he were convicted of all 34 felony counts against him would be 136 years behind bars.
He is unlikely to face anything near that type of sentence, and it is unlikely that the prosecutors would ask for that, but the fact that it exists as a possibility is staggering.
Famed Attorney Alan Dershowitz believes that Bragg could be disbarred for his case against Trump.
Dershowitz also argued that Bragg could face up to five years in prison if he is found guilty of leaking details of Trump’s indictment to the media. Leaking grand jury testimony to the public is a Class E felony in New York and carries a prison sentence between one and five years.
On Monday night, Trump’s attorney Alina Habba spoke on Fox News about Trump being indicted and what’s likely to happen next.
“You know, we have Letitia James, that’s probably the most prominent one that I want to discuss because that is, again, a corrupt system. They’re going after the Trump Organization, poor Allen Weisselberg is sitting in Rikers Island right now over what, valuations? This is a real estate company that has done extremely well, is successful, and they’re trying to take them and all of their individuals that lead that company down for nothing. You know, they got three years of special proceeding investigations. They interviewed almost 60 people. We have five weeks. We have a complaint filed many November, it’s going to trial in October,” Habba began.
“This shows exactly how corrupt New York’s judicial system has become. The D.A.s and the A.G.s, Jim Jordan, I hope he brings in each and every one of them and asks them where the funding came from and how they think it’s appropriate to take funding away from the city that is now falling apart, which I used to love. They are taking funding away while people are dying and there is crime rampant in the streets to go after the leading GOP Republican candidate. It is unacceptable,” she added.
“That is, for me, the most important case I have. Other than that, you know, a lot of them are cases where we have to defend against things like election fraud, things like — I have a case in Pennsylvania, you know, somebody tweeted something and they sue Donald Trump. You know, I have a case against Mary Trump and The New York Times. I’m defending the case against E. Jean Carroll In three weeks on trial in New York. Again, the same thing, rapid, rapid trials,” she concluded.
