Ivanka Trump Has Broken Her Silence After Her Dad’s Indictment

In a statement Thursday evening, Trump decried the indictment, calling it “political persecution” and “election interference at the highest level in history.” He also slammed Bragg as having been “hand-picked and funded by George Soros,” alluding to a well-known antisemitic dog whistle.

“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election interference,” he said.

The indictment remains under seal, and it is not yet clear what charges Trump may be facing, but experts believe it will center on how he may have tried to conceal what the payment was for.

On its own, paying off Daniels wouldn’t be a crime. But if Trump fraudulently documented the expense — he claimed the payment was covered under Cohen’s “monthly retainer” fee — that could constitute the crime of falsifying business records.

Falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but can be elevated to a felony if the records in question were falsified in order to hide criminal wrongdoing — in this case, possibly a breach of campaign finance laws.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of campaign finance fraud, tax evasion, and lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he said he did in an act of “blind loyalty” to Trump. He was sentenced to three years of imprisonment but was released after a little over a year over COVID-19 concerns and served the rest of his term on house arrest.