EXCLUSIVE: Trump to be indicted on 34 felony charges Tuesday, but escapes handcuffs and bullets

Donald Trump will be arrested on Tuesday and charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, according to a source close to the former president’s indictment.

A New York City police arrest report summarizing the charges against Trump will be prepared and entered into the court system before he heads to court for a formal arraignment on the charges.

But according to the source, Trump will not be handcuffed, held in jail or shot — procedures that are common even for white defendants until a judge weighs in on pretrial conditions. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which consulted with Secret Service and New York City court officials, concluded there was no reason to handcuff or shoot the former president.

The reason given for handcuffing the defendants is that the suspect may be a flight risk or a threat to the district attorney or court staff, none of which have been evaluated at any time as being related to the protection of the former president. A phalanx of secret service agents.

Falsifying business records is routinely prosecuted as a felony in New York State. But Bragg’s office downgraded all charges to Class E felonies — the lowest felony level under New York State’s criminal code — because the act was intended to cover up another underlying crime, the source said.

Under the New York State Penal Code, a Class E felony conviction for falsifying business records carries a sentence of up to four years in prison. But as a practical matter, that seems highly unlikely. “Nobody gets jail time as a first-time offender,” said a New York law enforcement official.

Evidence of the underlying crime that led to Trump’s misconduct is still unclear and won’t be until Tuesday’s indictment. But in the year It is believed to be related to the payment of $130,000 in hush money to sex film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an extramarital affair with Trump in the closing weeks of the 2016 election.

After this story was posted, a Trump spokeswoman said the former president’s legal team had not seen the lawsuit or been briefed on its details. Trump himself responded in a post on TruthSocial.

“Wow! District Attorney Bragg has illegally released details and full details of the tragic case against me,” Trump wrote. “I know the journalist and unfortunately he is. This means he should be impeached immediately. Now, if he really wants to clear his name, he will do his honorable job and incriminate himself as a district attorney. He will go down in judicial history, and his Trump-hating wife, I’m sure, She is so proud of him!