On Monday, workers erected barricades around a Manhattan courthouse as New York City braced for Donald Trump’s possible indictment over an alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.
It would be the first criminal prosecution of a US president.
On Saturday, Trump urged his social media followers to protest his alleged impending arrest.
In his call for protests, Trump expressed concern to law enforcement that supporters might engage in violence similar to the attack on the United States Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.
However, fearing a trap, several far-right grassroots groups have chosen not to respond to his call, according to security analysts.
A grand jury that heard additional testimony on Monday may file charges as soon as this week.
Trump, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination again in 2024, predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday.
On Monday the grand jury heard from a witness, lawyer Robert Costello, who said Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen had handled the hush-money payments without Trump’s involvement.
“Michael Cohen decided on his own – that’s what he told us – on his own, to see if he could take care of this,” Costello told reporters after testifying to the grand jury at Trump’s lawyer’s request.
Cohen, who testified twice before the grand jury, has said publicly Trump directed him to make the payments on his behalf.
An indictment could hurt Trump’s comeback attempt. Some 44% of Republicans say he should drop out of the presidential race if he is indicted, according to a seven-day Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday.
The investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is one of several legal challenges facing Trump. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal campaign finance violations tied to his arranging payments to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, and another woman in exchange for their silence about affairs they claimed with Trump.
Trump has denied that any such affairs took place
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office had asked that Cohen be available as a rebuttal witness, but he was told on Monday afternoon that his testimony was not needed, according to his lawyer Lanny Davis. Cohen told MSNBC he had not been asked to return on Wednesday.
Trump now faces two civil trials involving former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claims that Trump defamed her by denying he raped her. A federal judge on Monday denied a request from both sides to combine the two cases into one.