Trump, DA Bragg Speak Out After Arraignment; Date Set For Next Hearing

December 4th is the date of the next scheduled hearing in former President Donald Trump‘s criminal case in New York, the details of which became clear Tuesday when a grand jury’s indictment was unsealed Tuesday in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney who convened the grand jury and is bringing the case, spoke publicly for the first time since the indictment last week following Trump’s arraignment, saying the 34 felony counts tied to a 2016 hush money scheme constituted “felony crimes in New York state — no matter who you are.”

“We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct,” Bragg said. The Democratic prosecutor said accurate and true business records are important everywhere, but especially in Manhattan, because it’s the financial center of the world.

Appearing in front of several hundred supporters at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, Tuesday night, Trump repeated his claims that the investigation was politically motivated and attacked Bragg and the judge in the New York case.

“The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said.

President Trump was in New York for a mere 24 hours and in the lower Manhattan courthouse for barely two hours, but the appearance created a spectacle befitting of his outsized persona.

A couple hundred of his supporters, many wearing recognizable MAGA headgear and waving large Trump flags, descended on the small park opposite the courthouse, chanted and rallied around the belief that “their” president is the victim of a conspiracy between the Manhattan DA and the Biden Administration.

“They have nothing to campaign on,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who joined the pro-Trump demonstrators, “so they decided to arrest President Trump, who is innocent, on the word of a porn star, and a felon.”

Congresswoman Greene was referring to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual affair with Trump, and Michael Cohen, Trump’s ex-fixer who supposedly paid off Daniels at Trump’s direction to keep her quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign.

But every such charge lodged by the Trump crowd was countered Tuesday by a louder and more vocal drumbeat of anti-Trump sentiment, including frequent calls to “lock him up!”

New York City may be Donald Trump’s hometown, but it is certainly no longer ‘his’ town. He is deeply unpopular among a majority of city residents, a fact that may help fuel the former president’s repeated assertion that this and other investigations into his actions are personally and politically motivated.

Witnesses say, sitting in the courtroom Tuesday, Trump appeared somber and unemotional.

“President Trump has this motionless position throughout the session,” said Luigi Sofio, a reporter with Brazilian news outlet TV Globo, “he only spoke 12 words all together, two of which were ‘not guilty’.”

Specifically, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, all related to the $130,000 payment to Daniels, allegedly to keep her from going public with her allegation of an extramarital affair with Trump years before and harming his election chances.

“I was surprised,” added Sofio, “he was quite calm and I think ‘humble’ would be a proper word.”

Meanwhile, ‘tense’ might be the proper word to describe the scene outside the courthouse while the arraignment played out, with hundreds of police officers making sure the building and surrounding area remained secure until the former president and his entourage were gone.

By about 3:30 p.m. ET, two hours after arriving, the legal proceedings were finished and Trump was on his way back uptown and back home to Florida. The crowds gradually dispersed, leaving behind a still sizable horde of media to file their reports and police to carry away the metal barricades.