Democrat Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said there’s ‘no reason to protest’ following former President Donald Trump’s claim he will likely be arrested this week for alleged hush money payments, appearing to echo Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s similar comment to not protest.

Warren joined ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday and told host Jonathan Karl that she always worried about violence stemming from protests but said there’s no reason for Trump supporters to protest his potential arrest this week stemming from a years-long investigation surrounding Trump’s alleged hush-money payments involving porn star Stormy Daniels.

‘Violence is never the right answer, and I always worry about it. But this is another case of Donald Trump just trying to advance the interests of Donald Trump, not of the rest of the nation,’ she said.

‘There’s no reason to protest this. This is the law operating as it should without fear or favor for anyone,’ she added.

Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday and said leaks from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office indicate that he will be arrested Tuesday. 

‘NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Toward the end of Trump’s successful 2016 run for president, his previous lawyer, Michael Cohen, sent $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from disclosing her 2006 affair with Trump. Trump then reimbursed Cohen.

Prosecutors may bring charges against Trump related to the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records as ‘legal expenses.’

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the potential indictment this week a ‘witch hunt’ in comment to Fox News Digital.

‘President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most Radical Left Democrats are making that clear,’ Cheung wrote in a statement.

Taylor Greene made a similar remark to Warren’s about not protesting over the matter, calling on Trump supporters to not take to the streets and arguing that ‘these idiots are sealing their own fate’ in 2024 over the potential arrest. 

‘We don’t need to protest about the Communists Democrat’s planning to arrest Pres Trump and the political weaponization of our government and election interference,’ Taylor Greene tweeted Saturday. 

‘These idiots are sealing their own fate in 2024 because the silent majority has two feelings right now about the current regime. Fear and anger. That is the most powerful combination when election time comes. And the Democrats are driving that force with their own corrupt actions.’

Warren said Sunday that Trump is not ‘above the law,’ and the legal system is operating as intended.

‘No one is above the law, not even the former president of the United States. If there has been an investigation, and that investigation should be allowed to go forward appropriately. If it’s time to bring indictments, then they’ll bring indictments. That’s how our legal system works.’

Fox News Digital’s Aaron Kliegman contributed to this report.

Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke out against the possible arrest of former President Donald Trump, arguing the move would be a ‘politically charged prosecution.’

‘It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here. And I, for my part, I just feel like it’s just not what the American people want to see,’ Pence said when asked about the potential arrest during a Sunday appearance on ABC News’ ‘This Week.’ 

‘I’m taken aback at the idea of indicting a former president of the United States, at a time when there’s a crime wave in New York City, that – the fact that the Manhattan D.A. thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority.’

The former vice president’s remarks come after Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform Saturday that he could be arrested on Tuesday, arguing there had been ‘illegal leaks’ of the investigation’s details to the press.

The case against Trump surrounds alleged hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election, with investigators probing whether Trump falsified documents to hide the reason for the payments.

Trump later called for protests in response to his possible arrest, telling followers: ‘WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!’

Pence defended the right of Trump supporters to protest the possible arrest, so long as they ‘do so peacefully and in a lawful manner.’

Pence also decried protests such as those in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, arguing violent demonstrations are a ‘disgrace.’

‘The American people won’t tolerate it and those that engage in that kind of violence should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,’ Pence said.

Following former President Donald Trump’s claims that he is bracing for his arrest this week, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., on Sunday said prosecutors must have a strong case to warrant the ‘unprecedented’ arrest of a former president.

Kelly addressed the situation on CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ calling it ‘very important’ for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to ‘thoroughly’ look into the case before charging Trump, adding that ‘nobody’s above the law’ in the U.S.

‘You know, I would hope that if they brought charges that they have a strong case, because this is, as you said, it’s unprecedented,’ the former astronaut said. ‘And, you know, there are certainly, you know, risks involved here. But again, nobody in our nation is or should be above the law.’

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is reportedly preparing to issue an indictment for alleged hush money payments that Trump made as a presidential candidate in 2016.

Trump claimed on his Truth Social site Saturday morning that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday, writing in part, ‘PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!’ 

Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented prosecution of a former American president.

When asked whether law enforcement should be concerned that Trump’s remarks could spark deadly violence, Kelly said authorities should ‘pay attention’ to any protests that unfold.

‘But the president’s supporters, they have First Amendment rights and they should be able to exercise those peacefully,’ Kelly said. ‘I think it’s going to be important for law enforcement to pay attention to, you know, protests and make sure it doesn’t rise to the level of violence.’

In an internal email following Trump’s statements, Bragg said law enforcement would ensure that the 1,600 people who work in his office would remain safe, and that ‘any specific or credible threats’ would be investigated.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump called the Manhattan district attorney investigating him a ‘Racist in Reverse’ amid reports the former president could be arrested this week for alleged campaign finance violations.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is reportedly preparing to issue an indictment for alleged hush-money payments that Trump made as a presidential candidate in 2016.

Trump called Bragg, the New York City borough’s first Black district attorney, a ‘Racist in Reverse’ on his Truth Social site Sunday, reiterating his claims of a conspiracy in the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

‘Biden wants to pretend he has nothing to do with the Manhattan D.A.’s Assault on Democracy when, in fact, he has ‘stuffed’ the D.A.’s Office with Department of Injustice people, including one top DOJ operative from D.C. who is actually running the ‘Horseface’ Witch Hunt,’ Trump wrote.

‘Bragg is a (Soros) Racist in Reverse, who is taking his orders from D.C. I beat them TWICE, doing much better the second time, and despite their DISINFORMATION campaign, they don’t want to run against ‘TRUMP’ or my GREAT RECORD!’ he said.

‘When Alvin Bragg first attained office, he made it very clear that, like many other prosecutors, there was no case against Donald J. Trump,’ he wrote in a subsequent post. ‘Then the Biden Administration, the Democrats, and the Fake News Media began pushing him, and pushing him hard, and low [sic] and behold he said that there might just be a case after all. I knew what that meant — He was being pushed to do something that shouldn’t be done. He wasn’t willing to stand up to Soros and the Marxists that are destroying our Country!’

‘There was no ‘misdemeanor’ here either,’ he added. ‘There was no crime, period. All other of the many Democrat law enforcement officers that looked at it, took a pass. So did [former Manhattan DA] Cy Vance, and so did Bragg. But then, much latter (sic), he changed his mind. Gee, I wonder why? Prosecutorial Misconduct and Interference with an Election. Investigate the Investigators!’

Trump is facing criticism for calling on his supporters to protest on Saturday, claiming that ‘illegal leaks’ from the DA’s office had led him to believe he would be arrested Tuesday.

Bragg’s office will reportedly meet with law enforcement officials to discuss logistics for a potential indictment, which stems from a years-long investigation into Trump’s alleged hush-money scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels.

In a post Saturday, Trump described Bragg as ‘corrupt’ and ‘highly political.’

‘PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!’ he wrote.

The DA’s office declined to respond to Trump’s comments when reached by Fox News Digital on Sunday. 

Critics compared Trump’s call to action to the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol building and temporarily halted the certification of President Biden’s election victory.

The DA’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that Bragg sent a memo to employees on Saturday saying any attempts to intimidate his office would not be tolerated. His office has so far declined to confirm reports of a coming indictment.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Sunday there are no indications the White House is preparing for violence related to Trump’s posts.

‘We’re always monitoring the situation here as best we can,’ Kirby told ‘Fox News Sunday.’

‘I’m not aware of any indications that we’re preparing for that kind of activity, specifically with respect to those comments,’ he said. ‘But obviously, we work hand in glove with local and state authorities all around the country, and we’ll continue to watch this as best we can.’

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday asked state lawmakers for a measure on the 2024 ballot to fund a major expansion of housing and treatment for residents suffering from mental illness and addiction. 

The governor was expected to elaborate on the details during a Sunday afternoon press conference in San Diego. It’s part of the Democratic governor’s broader goal to tackle the state’s deeply entrenched homelessness epidemic.  

The governor’s request asks for authorization funding to build residential facilities where over 10,000 people a year could live and be treated. 

Tent encampments have popped up on sidewalks and under freeway overpasses across California. People with clear mental health issues have become a familiar sight to residents. 

The initiative would be partially funded by general obligation bonds that would go toward the construction of ‘campus-style’ facilities along with smaller homes and long-term residential settings, Newsom’s office said.

State Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, will introduce the measure, which would also earmark money to house more than 10,000 homeless veterans across the state, according to the statement.

The announcement from Newsom comes as the governor is wrapping up a four-day tour of the state, highlighting his major policy goals instead of a traditional State of the State address.

Last week, Newsom announced a plan to spend about $30 million to build 1,200 small homes across the state to help house homeless people. The homes can be assembled quickly and cost a fraction of what it takes to build permanent housing. Federal courts have ruled cities can’t clear homeless encampments if there are no shelter beds available. 

The governor’s plans are not without critics, however. California Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher of Yuba City said any plan to address homelessness ought to begin with requiring that homeless people with mental illness and suffering from drug addiction get treatment. 

‘And after that, he should reduce the taxes, fees, and regulations that have made it nearly impossible for Californians to afford housing, electricity, and all other everyday costs,’ Gallagher said in a statement. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

President Biden’s Twitter account posted a questionable statistic on Saturday about how much tax Americans billionaires pay.

‘Look, I think you should be able to be a billionaire if you can earn it, but just pay your fair share,’ Biden’s tweet read. ‘I think you ought to pay a minimum tax of 25%. It’s about basic fairness.’

The tweet included a graphic of a Biden quote that said: ‘You know the average tax billionaires pay? Three percent. No billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a schoolteacher or a firefighter.’ 

But it is unclear where the 3% figure came from, and contradicts figures the White House has issued in the past. 

In February, White House issued a fact sheet called ‘The Biden Economic Plan Is Working,’ which calculated how much tax the U.S. could collect if it counted unrealized gains – a potential profit on an unsold asset – as income.

‘In a typical year, billionaires pay an average tax rate of just 8%,’ the fact sheet read. Factoring in unrealized gains is the reason for the lower statistic. 

‘Using the existing definition of taxable income, really rich people pay an average federal income tax rate in the mid-20s,’ Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center senior fellow Howard Gleckman told PolitiFact in July. ‘If you want to include unrealized gains in your denominator, as the White House does, the average rate would go way down.’

Another White House figure from 2021 gave an 8% figure rather than the 3% one Biden recently cited. 

‘The analysis from OMB and CEA economists estimates that the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in America paid an average of just 8.2 percent of their income – including income from their wealth that goes largely untaxed – in Federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018. That’s a lower rate than many ordinary Americans pay,’ the 2021 post read.

In response, Twitter CEO Elon Musk disputed Biden’s tax claim.

‘I paid 53% taxes on my Tesla stock options (40% Federal & 13% state), so I must be lifting the average!’ the South African entrepreneur wrote. ‘I also paid more income tax than anyone ever in the history of Earth for 2021 and will do that again in 2022.’

‘Would be curious to hear how these other ‘billionaires’ are so good at avoiding taxes!’ Musk added in another tweet, after asking Twitter’s Community Notes feature to fact-check the statement.

The liberal New York City prosecutor allegedly set to arrest former President Donald Trump has a history of facing accusations he’s soft on crime.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office may arrest Trump this week after a years-long investigation involving the ex-president’s alleged hush payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2020 election campaign, Trump claims.

Bragg’s office has not confirmed nor denied plans to arrest Trump, who has called for his supporters to protest ahead of the alleged indictment.

‘NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social this weekend. 

As Trump’s successful 2016 presidential run came to a close, Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen sent $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from disclosing her 2006 affair with Trump. Trump reimbursed Cohen through installments.

Bragg empaneled a grand jury over the matter, indicating he will soon decide whether or not to charge the former president.

But Bragg, who came into office as a reform-minded DA, has repeatedly been accused of letting murderers off the hook, including when the family of a slain New York man said he betrayed them by not prosecuting a nurse who was charged with fatally stabbing her estranged husband.

‘It is our position that you have prematurely substituted your version of events for the fact-finding functions of the jury and neither honored your promise to the court or to my family to seek even a measure of accountability,’ the brother of slain man James Murray, Steven Murray, wrote to Bragg in December.

James Murray was fatally stabbed by estranged wife Tracy McCarter in 2020, who said she killed her husband in self-defense and that he was an abusive alcoholic. McCarter was championed by domestic violence advocates, according to previous coverage from the New York Post, and Bragg received a donation from advocacy group Color of Change, which advocated for her release, during his run as DA.

He tweeted in support of McCarter’s release in the run-up to his election and ultimately secured his bid to drop murder charges against the woman, which the family of the slain man said was ‘100%’ motivated by the donation from Color of Change.

Similar cases have unfolded since his inauguration, including him getting ridiculed for cutting a sweetheart deal with a career criminal who went on to punch a woman randomly; his slap on the wrist for a man who viciously assaulted a 55-year-old nurse; and jailing, yet ultimately releasing, the bodega owner who killed an aggressive ex-convict who attacked him on murder charges.

In 2022, during Bragg’s first year as Manhattan’s top prosecutor, he downgraded more than half of felony cases to misdemeanors. He campaigned on criminal justice reform and sent a ‘Day One’ memo to staff upon taking office to downgrade certain felonies, such as armed robberies of commercial businesses. The move came at a time when crimes were up 27.6% in New York City, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Bragg declined to prosecute 35% more felony cases than in 2019.

Trump on Sunday went after Bragg for his financial support from liberal billionaire donors George Soros, who donated $1 million to the Color of Change political action committee, which funneled money to Bragg, the New York Post previously reported.

‘​​Bragg is a (Soros) Racist in Reverse, who is taking his orders from D.C. I beat them TWICE, doing much better the second time, and despite their DISINFORMATION campaign, they don’t want to run against ‘TRUMP’ or my GREAT RECORD!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday. 

Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center in Virginia, previously told the outlet that Soros’ donations are a ‘shock and awe’ political maneuver.

‘George Soros has quietly orchestrated the dark money political equivalent of ‘shock and awe’ on local attorney races through the country, shattering records, flipping races and essentially making a mockery of our entire campaign finance system,’Anderson told the New York Post.

Bragg was elected in 2021 and became the first Black American to lead the powerful office. But since assuming office, he has also been hit with criticisms from other New York leaders, including NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who said she was ‘very concerned’ with his ‘Day One’ memo.

‘I am making my concerns known to the Manhattan District Attorney and hope to have frank and productive discussions to try and reach more common ground,’ Sewell wrote in a message to officers last year. ‘As police commissioner, your safety is my paramount concern. That is one reason I am seeking to have conversations with the district attorney to seek a better balance between officer safety, public safety and reform.’

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the investigation into Trump as a ‘witch hunt’ and accused Bragg of being in the pocket of President Joe Biden and ‘radical Democrats.’

‘President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most Radical Left Democrats are making that clear,’ Cheung wrote in a statement.

A San Francisco district supervisor is calling for more policing in the crime-ridden city – despite advocating to defund the police in 2020.

Hillary Ronen, Democrat, represents District 9 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. During a Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday, she made an impassioned plea to add more officers to the Mission District, which she represents.

Ronen was attacking San Francisco’s police chief for spending a large amount of overtime on an anti-retail theft program instead of prioritizing police presence in her district. 

‘I’ve been begging this department to give the Mission what it deserves in terms of police presence all year long,’ Ronen said. ‘And I have been told time and time and time and time again there are no officers that we can send to Mission.’

‘It hurts. And I feel betrayed by the department. I feel betrayed by the mayor. I feel betrayed by the priorities of the city,’ the Democratic politician added. 

The speech contradicts her stance on policing in 2020. After the George Floyd protests, Ronen tweeted that she believed ‘strongly’ that San Francisco’s police force needed to be reduced.

‘I want to make it clear that I believe strongly in defunding the police and reducing the number of officers on our force,’ Ronen wrote. ‘For decades we’ve had an imbalance in our city’s budget, with hundreds of millions of dollars going to SFPD to have them do work they are not qualified to do.’

SAN FRANCISCO CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM ROCKED BY ‘EARTHQUAKE’ UNDER NEW DA, ACTIVIST SAYS 

In 2020, Mayor London Breed redirected $120 million from law enforcement to fund other city initiatives. Crime in San Francisco continued to worsen, with homicides increasing by 20% in 2020 compared to 2019. Homicides also increased 17% in 2021 compared to the previous year.

By December 2021, Breed made an emergency request to the Board of Supervisors to add more funds to the city’s police department.

The San Francisco Police Department has struggled with lack of staffing the past few years. In February, officers responded to a burglary over 15 hours after the 911 call was made.

‘While the SFPD is short-staffed and our response times have been negatively impacted as a result, a response time of over 12 hours for a call of this nature falls far short of the department’s and the public’s expectations,’ Officer Robert Rueca said. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Ronen’s office for comment, but has not heard back.

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump will travel to Texas next weekend for what will be his first major rally as he seeks the GOP nomination for president in 2024.

Announced Friday, the leading Republican’s rally will be held on March 25 in Waco, Texas, which is part of McLennan County, which Trump won in 2020 by more than 23 points.

Trump has made numerous visits to the state over the years. Waco is the site of a deadly 1993 massacre where federal agents seized a compound of the Branch Davidians, a religious cult.

The plans for Trump’s rally come amid reports that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office may be preparing to issue an indictment for alleged hush money payments Trump made as a presidential candidate in 2016.

But the potential indictment and Trump’s claim that he may be arrested Tuesday is not preventing the former president’s team from ensuring the rally goes on.

‘There has been no notification, other than illegal leaks from the Justice Dept. and the DA’s office, to NBC and other fake news carriers, that the George Soros-funded Radical Left Democrat prosecutor in Manhattan has decided to take his Witch-Hunt to the next level,’ a Trump spokesperson said Saturday. ‘President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system. He will be in Texas next weekend for a giant rally. Make America Great Again!’

A court source told Fox News Digital that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will meet with law enforcement to ‘discuss logistics for some time next week, which would mean that they are anticipating an indictment next week.’

The potential indictment stems from the years-long investigation surrounding Trump’s alleged hush money scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels. Towards the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen sent $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from disclosing her 2006 affair with Trump. Trump reimbursed Cohen through installments.

Trump lashed out at the reports suggesting he would be arrested next week via his Truth Social app on Saturday morning, telling his supporters to ‘PROTEST, TAKE BACK OUR NATION.’

‘NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!,’ Trump wrote.

In a lengthy statement to Fox News Digital, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the investigation as a ‘witch hunt’ and accused Bragg of being in the pocket of President Biden and ‘radical Democrats.’

‘President Donald J. Trump is completely innocent, he did nothing wrong, and even the biggest, most Radical Left Democrats are making that clear,’ Cheung said.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo, Marta Dhanis, Adam Sabes, and Brandon Gillespie, as well as The Associated Press, contributed to this report.

Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office won’t have much of a legal leg to stand on if they indict former President Donald Trump on violating campaign finance law, according to a legal expert and former member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

‘If the state charges are based on a supposed violation of federal campaign finance law, then the Manhattan DA is way off base,’ Hans von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital.

Von Spakovsky’s comments came shortly after Trump said Saturday that he expects to be arrested Tuesday amid reports saying the Manhattan district attorney’s office is preparing to issue an indictment for alleged hush money payments that Trump made as a presidential candidate in 2016.

‘NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!, [sic]’ Trump posed to his Truth Social account.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will reportedly meet with law enforcement officials to discuss logistics for some time next week regarding a potential indictment, which stems from a years-long investigation into Trump’s alleged hush money scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels.

In the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen sent $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from disclosing her alleged 2006 affair with Trump, who has denied the affair. Trump subsequently reimbursed Cohen.

It’s been widely speculated that Trump could be charged with overseeing the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records as ‘legal expenses.’

Prosecutors are also expected to charge Trump with violating campaign finance laws by arranging the payments to buy Daniels’ silence weeks before the 2016 election. However, experts have questioned the legal reasoning behind such a charge.

‘A settlement payment of a nuisance claim is not a federal campaign expense,’ said von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. ‘The state DA has no authority to prosecute a federal campaign finance violation in any event.’

Such cases, he argues, are within the province of the FEC, where he served as a commissioner, or the U.S. Justice Department, explaining that both agencies have known about the facts for years but have chosen not to prosecute Trump.

‘So, the federal agencies with jurisdiction did not consider it a violation,’ said von Spakovsky, who’s been following this case for years.

In 2018, von Spakovsky wrote that the payment to Daniels seemed to be a ‘nuisance settlement,’ which celebrities often make, especially when faced with the threat of a false or salacious claim.

‘Critics of the president claim this not only was a campaign expense that should have been reported but a potentially illegal loan by Cohen. But the settlement was ultimately paid out of Trump’s personal funds and had nothing to do with the campaign since their alleged one-night stand occurred 10 years before the campaign,’ wrote von Spakovsky. ‘No reasonable member of a jury would consider this to be a campaign-related expense that needed to be reported, or to which any other campaign finance rules in the Federal Election Campaign Act apply.’

Von Spakovsky noted in his 2018 analysis that the Department of Justice already tried out this theory with former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, whose campaign donors paid up to $1 million to Edwards’ mistress, Rielle Hunter, while she was working as a videographer for Edwards and his presidential campaign.

The Department Justice tried to argue these were campaign-related payments, even though they didn’t go through the Edwards campaign’s accounts, because they were intended to protect Edwards’ reputation during his presidential bid. A jury acquitted Edwards on one charge of accepting an illegal campaign donation and failed to reach a verdict on the other charges, resulting in a mistrial.

The Department of Justice dropped its prosecution and never retried Edwards.

‘The alleged one-night stand between Daniels and Trump is far more of a stretch,’ wrote von Spakovsky. ‘Daniels had no connection to the presidential campaign of any kind and the encounter — if it occurred — didn’t happen during the campaign itself. In any event, even if the Daniels payment were to be considered a campaign-related expense, unlike Edwards, the nominal $130,000 payment wasn’t made by Trump campaign donors but by Trump’s personal attorney (not the campaign’s attorney) with whom he has a long-standing business relationship. . . . Even if one might be able to reasonably construe the payment to Daniels as somehow related to the presidential campaign, there still would be no violation since candidates are allowed to spend as much of their own money as they want on their own campaigns.’

Von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital that his ‘opinion hasn’t changed’ since writing that article.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung described the ongoing probe as a ‘witch hunt,’ calling the former president ‘completely innocent’ and accusing Bragg of being in the pocket of President Biden and ‘radical Democrats.’ 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.