NEW YORK, March 31. /TASS/. Former US president Donald Trump slammed grand jury’s vote to indict him, describing it as political persecution and election interference in a statement released on Friday.
"This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history," Trump said, lashing at the "witch hunt" unleashed by "the Radical Left Democrats."
"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," said Trump, who earlier announced his bid for a non-consecutive second presidential term in 2024.
In a post on his Truth Social network, published later in the day, Trump lamented that the United States has become "a third world nation," as "thugs and radical left monsters" have indicted "the 45th President of the United States of America, and the leading Republican Candidate, by far, for the 2024 Nomination for President."
"This is an attack on our country the likes of which has never been seen before," Trump wrote, describing the move as "a continuing attack on our once free and fair elections."
Earlier in the day, a New York grand jury voted to indict Trump as part of a case into falsifying business records of his company, the Trump Organization. He will be the first US leader, former or acting, to face criminal charges.
The charges that are to be laid against the former president are yet unknown. According to the New York Times, the indictment will be published in the coming days.
According to the Wall Street Journal, New York attorneys normally refrain from publishing the indictment before the suspect is brought before the court. Trump is likely to be arraigned early next week, CNN reported on Friday, citing Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina.
According to the New York Times, Trump is currently staying in his mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
The grand jury is looking into reports of Trump’s alleged involvement in a scheme, in which the former president’s onetime lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. The purported payment was intended to stop Daniels from spreading allegations of having relationship with Trump in 2006. Financial records of the Trump Organization are said to have been falsified to reimburse the payment. Trump has consistently denied both the affair and any involvement in the scheme.
The US legal system normally treats falsification of documents as a petty offense not punishable with a prison term. However, if a grand jury decides that the falsification was intended to conceal another crime or commit a new one, Trump may face up to four years behind bars.