Like any criminal, Donald Trump had an interview with probation services on Monday, a necessary step before announcing his sentence, which could lead to prison in the case of paying the former porn star.
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In the midst of campaigning to return to the White House, the day after a meeting in a heat wave in Las Vegas, 77-year-old Donald Trump carried out the exercise in New York, where the condemned man is traditionally given a series of questions about himself. legal past, his professional and family situation and his physical or mental health, a source close to the case told AFP.
According to this source and the CNN channel, the interview lasted half an hour.
“President Trump and his team of lawyers are already taking all necessary steps to challenge and defeat the illegal Manhattan attorney’s lawsuit,” announced Steven Cheung, Donald Trump’s campaign director.
Unusually, the interview was to take place via video conference from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, rather than in person in Manhattan, making the billionaire the first former president of the United States to face a criminal investigation, several American media reported.
On May 30, twelve jurors unanimously found Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying accounting documents to cover up a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels at the end of the 2016 presidential campaign.
The payment, which was considered illegal to conceal, was intended to buy her silence about the sexual relationship she claims to have had with Donald Trump – and which the latter denies – in 2006, when he was already married to Melania.
An interview with Probation Services is expected to produce a report for Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial and will set a sentence on July 11.
The offense of falsifying accounting documents is theoretically punishable by up to four years in prison, but the judge can choose alternatives such as a suspended sentence or community service.
Three days after the sentencing, Donald Trump said on Fox News that a prison sentence would be “difficult for the public to accept” and could be “a breaking point” for his supporters.
