NYT: Donald Trump was asked on Tuesday to voluntarily give himself up to the police

According to The New York Times, Trump will thus become the first former US president in history to be charged with a criminal offense. Through lawyers, he was asked to voluntarily surrender to the authorities.

According to journalists, Donald Trump will most likely turn himself in to the police on Tuesday, April 4, after which the former president will be photographed and fingerprinted in the New York state courthouse, accompanied by Secret Service agents. Then the accusation will be read to him, the text of which will be published in the media.

In a special statement Thursday, Trump lashed out at District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, and presented his criminal case as a continuation of a "politically motivated witch hunt" against him.

The politician categorically denies the charges against him. He calls the "fiction of journalists" his alleged love affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, who tried to sell her story about a date with Trump during the 2016 election campaign.

"President Trump did not commit any crime," lawyers Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina emphasized in a statement. "We will vigorously fight this political persecution in court and prove Mr. Trump's innocence".

Nevertheless, TASS clarifies, the Grand Jury in New York is engaged, in particular, in considering the part of the case that concerns the forgery of financial documents of the Trump Organization company when paying Daniels' fee. According to preliminary data, lawyer Michael Cohen allegedly paid her $ 130 thousand so that she would not spread "unnecessary information" about the candidate for the highest US government post. Then the money spent, according to the prosecutor's office of the Southern District of New York, was compensated to the lawyer at the expense of the Trump Organization, for which the company's documents were falsified.

In itself, forgery of documents in the American legal system is regarded as a minor crime and usually does not provide for punishment in the form of imprisonment. However, if the Grand Jury decides that the falsification was made to conceal or commit another crime, then Trump could face up to four years in prison.

According to a survey conducted by the Quinnipiac University research Service, 57% of US citizens believe that if charges are brought against the former head of the White House, he should lose the right to participate in elections. 38% of respondents disagree with this opinion. At the same time, 62% of Americans believe that the case itself is "the most politically motivated".