Former President Donald Trump flew to New York’s LaGuardia Airport to surrender to face criminal charges related to a 2016 hush money payment case to porn star Stormy Daniels. They will arraign Trump on Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where a grand jury indicted him last week.
Trump left Mar-a-Lago at around 12:20 p.m. ET in a motorcade of SUVs, which were carrying his son Eric and his Secret Service protection detail among others. A small group of Trump supporters gathered Monday morning outside the club, waiting for his departure. Supporters with Trump-themed flags and signs also lined part of the route as Trump traveled from Mar-a-Lago to Palm Beach International Airport.
His private Boeing 757 plane — bearing the word “Trump” in large letters on its side — took off at 12:59 p.m. ET and landed at LaGuardia before 3:30 p.m. ET. Shortly before the plane left the ground, Trump sent another Truth Social post calling the indictment a “WITCH HUNT”.
Former president Donald Trump has said he will give a speech Tuesday night about his criminal hush case after he returns to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. As Trump was flying Monday, the attorney Todd Blanche announced that he had joined two other criminal defense lawyers, Joseph Tacopina and Susan Necheles, on Trump’s legal team for the case. Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who previously represented Trump’s one-time 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort in his own criminal case.
The Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump heard evidence for months this year about a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump paid Daniels to keep silent about a sexual encounter she had with him at a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2006. Trump denies having had any such relationship with her.
Trump’s surrender has been met with mixed reactions from political leaders and citizens alike. Some have praised it as a victory for justice and democracy, while others have criticized it as a failure of the legal system.
Trump’s future plans are currently unknown, but many speculate that he will continue to be an active voice in American politics and may even run for office again in the future.