Trump Indictment Vote on Hold in New York Hush-Money Case: Source

• A Manhattan grand jury will proceed listening to proof Monday within the Trump hush-money investigation.
• A last witness should testify earlier than the panel can deliberate after which vote on a doable indictment.
• Monday is now the earliest Trump might be indicted, although the fees would instantly be sealed.

A doable Donald Trump “hush-money” indictment is on maintain till a last witness testifies earlier than a Manhattan grand jury on Monday afternoon.

“There may be yet one more witness,” a supply with information of the investigation advised Insider on Saturday evening.

The supply spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to expose particulars of the grand jury proceedings.

The supply declined to establish the witness, whose testimony will cap a two-month grand jury presentation by prosecutors underneath District Lawyer Alvin Bragg.

A separate supply, who additionally spoke on situation of anonymity, advised Insider that the witness isn’t Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former CFO, who’s serving a five-month sentence for admittedly masterminding a payroll tax-dodge scheme on the Trump Group.

Information of a Monday grand jury witness was first reported by CNN.

Former Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen — the prosecution’s star witness for his admitted position in wiring the unlawful $130,000 cost to grownup movie actress Stormy Daniels, days earlier than the 2016 election — has advised reporters he anticipated to be the grand jury’s last witness when he testified final Monday and Wednesday.

The shock last witness gives an up to date clue to the timing of a doable indictment of Trump and of any co-defendants. 

The grand jury, which meets in secret in a decrease Manhattan workplace constructing, solely gathers to listen to testimony throughout three-hour afternoon classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Its members — wherever from 16 to 23 in quantity — may conceivably attain a vote by the tip of Monday’s three-hour session.

However that will be unlikely. Consultants who’ve described the Manhattan grand jury course of to Insider say there are a number of steps between the ultimate testimony and the vote.

As soon as testimony concludes, prosecutors will “cost” the jury, that means undergo the potential counts on a cost sheet one after the other, explaining every rely within the potential indictment.

Sources have advised Insider they count on the highest rely to be falsifying enterprise information within the first diploma, a low-level felony that will allege that Trump and another co-defendant falsified paperwork with a view to conceal one other crime, corresponding to omitting the $130,000 from marketing campaign monetary statements.

Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing or having an affair with Daniels, and has referred to as the prosecution a “Rip-off, Injustice, Mockery, and a Full and Whole Weaponization of Legislation Enforcement with a view to have an effect on a Presidential Election!”

As soon as the cost has ended, the prosecutor, courtroom officer, and stenographer depart the room, and the grand jurors start deliberating.

If 12 or extra attain a vote to indict, the foreperson can be given the hard-copy indictment to signal, at which level the previous president would formally, although secretly, be underneath indictment.

That tough-copy indictment would then be walked over to a close-by clerk’s workplace, the place it’s filed underneath seal. It will be unsealed at Trump’s arraignment, although Bragg may ask a decide to unseal it early, given the good public curiosity.

It is loads of exercise to suit into three hours; if the method is incomplete, the grand jurors may return on Wednesday afternoon to maintain working.

Trump had “Truthed” earlier Saturday that he “can be arrested on Tuesday of subsequent week,” telling supporters “Protest, take our nation again!” However that timing, already disputed by his lawyer, may by no means have labored given the brand new last witness.

The panel has to date heard from a gradual stream of witnesses, together with Cohen. Former Trump advisors Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway have additionally appeared.