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Former President Donald Trump’s first court hearing following his indictment on 34 counts of falsifying business records lasted 57 minutes, according to court records.
Here is the full transcript of what transpired in the courtroom, according to records that were released.
THE CLERK: Calendar number one, indictment 71543 of 2023, People of the State of New York versus Donald J. Trump. Appearances.
CHRISTOPHER CONROY: Christopher Conroy for the People. And Judge, with me are Catherine McCaw, Matthew Colangelo, Susan Hoffinger and Becky Mangold.
JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN: Good afternoon.
TODD BLANCHE: Good afternoon, your Honor. Todd Blanche for President Trump.
SUSAN NECHELES: Susan Necheles for President Trump as well.
JOSEPH TACOPINA: Once again, Joseph Tacopina for President Donald J. Trump.
JUDGE MERCHAN: Good afternoon. This matter is on for arraignment. Anything that we need to address before we conduct the arraignment?
CONROY: Not from the People.
JUDGE MERCHAN: Defense?
BLANCHE: No, your Honor.
JUDGE MERCHAN: Let’s arraign Mr. Trump.
THE CLERK: Donald J. Trump, the grand jury of New York County has filed indictment 71543 of 2023 charging you with the crimes of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. How do you plead to this indictment, guilty or not guilty?
DONALD TRUMP: Not guilty.
JUDGE MERCHAN: People.
CONROY: Thank you, Judge. First, we are filing with the Court and handing to counsel, copies of the indictment and a statement of facts. Judge, I’m also handing over to counsel a copy of the fingerprint report, and I would note for the record that the indictment was actually unsealed at 1:30 today and given to counsel for the defendant so they could review that in advance of this appearance. Your Honor, a grand jury sitting here in Manhattan made up of diligent, thoughtful New Yorkers who did their civic duty, listened to the evidence and carefully considered the charges has voted an indictment against the defendant, Donald J. Trump, charging him with 34 separate felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in violation of New York State Penal Law section 175 10.
ADA McCaw is prepared to address discovery, scheduling of motions, and a trial date in a moment, but with the Court’s permission, I would first like to address briefly what this case is about, the defendant’s recent public statements, conditions of release, and the conflict matter the People believe the Court should be aware of.
JUDGE MERCHAN: Please.
CONROY: Thank you. The defendant, Donald J. Trump, falsified New York business records in order to conceal an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election and other violations of Election Laws. Beginning in about August of 2015, the defendant agreed with others to carry out an unlawful plan to identify and suppress negative information that could have undermined his candidacy for President. As part of that plan, a lawyer employed by the Trump Organization made a covert and illegal $130,000 payment at the defendant’s direction. The purpose of the payment was to avoid negative attention to the defendant’s campaign by suppressing information about an allegedly sexual encounter between defendant and an adult film actress.
After the election, defendant reimbursed the lawyer through a series of disguised monthly payments that hid the true nature of the payoff by causing a series of false business records in the records of the Trump Organization here in Manhattan, and even mischaracterized for tax purposes the true nature of the payment. Defendant falsified these New York business records with the intent to defraud, including the intent tocommit another crime, and to aid and conceal the commission of another crime.
This office has long prioritized protecting the integrity of business records maintained here in New York County.
When those records are falsified in service of another crime, it is a felony.
That is what this defendant did when he falsified business records in order to conceal unlawful efforts to promote his candidacy and that is why we are here.
Next, I would like to briefly address this defendant’s recent public statements threatening our city, our justice system, our courts, and our office.
Over the past several weeks and longer, this defendant has made a series of threatening and escalating communications on social media and on other public remarks. This includes irresponsible social media posts that target various individuals involved in this matter, and even their families.
His public statements have, among other things, threatened potential death and destruction, and that is a quote, and world war three, another quote, if these charges were brought and he was indicted.
They have directly addressed the grand jury and disparaged witnesses who have purportedly participated in our investigation.
Defendant has also directed a series of threatening public statements to the District Attorney’s Office, including posting a picture that depicts Mr. Trump wielding a baseball bat at the head of the District Attorney.
These comments and posts have led to extensive public safety measures being put into place by a number of law enforcement agencies around the city, including here at the courthouse starting several weeks ago.
At this point, I’m going to hand the Court copies of several of the defendant’s recent online posts as an example. Sorry, one moment.
(Handed to Court and counsel).
CONROY: I’m also handing copies to counsel. These posts are examples of this kind of threatening rhetoric.
We have significant concern about the potential danger this kind of rhetoric poses to our city, to potential jurors and witnesses, and to the judicial process.
What these kinds of posts will not do, is deter the New York County District Attorney’s Office from carrying out its critical public safety mission professionally, and evenhandedly in connection with every single investigation and prosecution we have handled, including this one.
At this point, one way to address the defendant’s behavior and rhetoric is an appropriately restricted protective order concerning discovery materials, so that his lawyers can access the information they need to prepare a defense, while at the same time, making sure the defendant does not disseminate any information provided as discovery through threatening online posts.
ADA McCaw will further address the protective order shortly, and the terms of any protective order the Court enters can of course be carefully policed through contempt proceedings and other sanctions as necessary. Today we are only seeking a protective order regarding discovery materials, but we note that the defendant’s escalating public comments summing directly at participants at these proceedings and their family members, may also raise concerns about the fair and orderly administration of justice, the risks that pretrial publicity will paint the jury pool and prejudice a fair trial, and individual and public safety concerns.
We are considering whether further relief or conditions would be warranted here based on continuing developments, and we would be prepared to submit briefing if the Court requests.
I’m going to move now to conditions of release. In addressing the terms or the conditions of defendant’s release, we first note under New York law, these charges are not bail eligible.
We further note defendant surrendered voluntarily for his processing and arraignment today.
We are asking the Court to give the defendant Parker warnings before he leaves the courtroom today.
Should the defendant decide got to return to court from out of state, these warnings would help mitigate potential issues around any extradition proceeding.
Finally, if circumstances change and we believe modifications to these conditions are required, we will advise the Court.
Last on my list, we would like to bring to your attention a potential conflict Mr. Tacopina may have, given our understanding that he previously had privileged communications with Stormy Daniels, who we expect to be a witness in this case.
We believe it appropriate for you to conduct an inquiry at an appropriate time of both Mr. Tacopina and the defendant about potential conflict issues related to his prior dealings with Ms. Daniels.
We received a copy of a letter from Ms. Daniels’s current lawyer which was sent to Mr. Tacopina on this issue yesterday; Monday, April 3.
We can file a copy with the Court and serve it on counsel within the next day or so if that would assist the Court in considering this issue.
At this point, if it is okay, I was going to turn to Ms. McCaw to talk about discovery and other issues.
JUDGE MERCHAN: Of course. Counsel?MORE: Trump indictment live updates
BLANCHE: Your Honor, thank you. I didn’t realize we were going to give opening statements today.
I would appreciate the opportunity to respond.
Your Honor, the People just talked for 10 minutes or so about, it sounds like the strength of their case.
They did this — there is no trial, we have not seen discovery. It is actually consistent with what the witnesses have been doing they have been calling over the past several months.
Indeed, their main witness, Michael Cohen walks out of this office and stands on the courthouse steps everytime he meets with the prosecutors, everytime he testifies in the grand jury, and announces exactly what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.
It is true that President Trump has responded, and responded forcefully. It is true that as part of that response, he’s absolutely frustrated, upset, and believes that there is a grave injustice happening with him being in this courtroom today.
That being said, your Honor, for the People to stand before you today and give their version of this indictment, is actually exasperating the problem.
So, the complaint from the People is that President Trump is talking too much about the case, talking too much about the investigation —
JUDGE MERCHAN: I’m not sure that is what they were saying. They are complaining about the rhetoric and the charged nature of the language that is being used.
CONROY: That is correct, your Honor.
BLANCHE: If that is the case, the President has not only free speech rights to talk about his view of what is happening by the District Attorney in this case, and also, it is important to step back, your Honor; to realize this case has been investigated for three and a half years.
Your Honor, one of the main investigators with this office, left the office, wrote a book about this investigation, published a book, and has talked about the book publicly.
Thereafter, as I said, the People’s main witness has talked repeatedly, not only on the courthouse steps, but on every news, every news show and print media. He has written two books, he has a podcast all talking about the case.
The President is running for reelection to be the President of the United States.
I mean, imagine anybody in this courtroom that was in that position, an investigation that lasted over three years, over three years with leaks galore.
The People were right, we received a copy of the indictment about 40 minutes ago. The media received a lot of these hints about the indictment last Thursday night, and a copy of the indictment last night apparently.
That is a grave injustice. The People didn’t address that. The People have not addressed the fact that there is literally a violation of law that happened at some point in the past five days with the illegal leaking of charges against President Trump.
What they did address, is their frustration when President Trump sees that, when he sees a legal leak describing charges that he knows nothing about, when we speak with the assigned ADAs, they correctly tell us they can’t share anything with us because it is sealed.
And then he’s frustrated and comments publicly about that; you can, I think, discuss words that are used, but everyone of these posts are not threats, they are not harassment, and rhetoric that maybe the People don’t like, sure.
