Big Apple epicenter of Trump fate

As the Manhattan DA fidgets, Republican contenders in the 2024 presidential race sized up the impact a prosecution of Donald Trump could have on a campaign in which the former president is a leading contender.

Trump over the weekend claimed without evidence that he would be arrested on Tuesday, but that prediction came and went. A Manhattan grand jury did appear to take an important step forward on Monday by hearing from a witness favorable to Trump, presumably so prosecutors could ensure the panel had a chance to consider any testimony supporting his version of events.

The next steps were unclear, and it was uncertain if additional witnesses might be summoned. But a city mindful of the riot by Trump loyalists at the U.S. Capitol more than two years ago took steps to protect itself from any violence that could accompany the unprecedented prosecution of a former president.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an expected GOP presidential candidate, criticized the investigation but also jabbed at Trump.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some kind of alleged affair,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Panama City. “I can’t speak to that.”

Switching to criticism of the district attorney, he said, “What I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office. And I think that’s fundamentally wrong.”

Trump is accused of directing his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to buy her silence over their alleged affair in 2006 — the year after he married wife Melania — and then illegally cover it up.

Trump has vehemently denied the claims.

Monday’s testimony from Robert Costello, a lawyer with close ties to numerous key Trump aides, appeared to be a final opportunity for allies to steer the grand jury away from an indictment.

Costello was invited by prosecutors to appear after saying he had information to undercut the credibility of Michael Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for Trump who later turned against him and then became a key witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation.

On Tuesday morning, Manhattan court proceedings were temporarily halted by a bomb threat called in via 911, according to a court spokesman. That delayed the start of a hearing in a separate case, the New York attorney general’s lawsuit accusing Trump and his company of a yearslong fraud scheme.