Trump will surrender to authorities if he's indicted, lawyer says

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Trump will surrender to authorities if he's indicted, lawyer says
Former U.S. President Donald Trump.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
  • Trump will surrender to authorities if he's indicted, his lawyer said.
  • "We will follow normal procedure if it gets to that point," Joe Tacopina told Insider.
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A lawyer representing Donald Trump told Insider that the former president will voluntarily surrender to the Manhattan district attorney's office if he is indicted.

"We will follow normal procedure if it gets to that point," Joe Tacopina said.

He struck a similar tone in an interview with The New York Daily News earlier Friday, telling the outlet, "There won't be a standoff at Mar-a-Lago with Secret Service and the Manhattan DA's office."

Questions have swirled about whether Trump, who famously refused to acknowledge his 2020 election loss, would resist coming to Manhattan to face charges.

Experts see little upside to attempting to fight extradition from Florida, however, and defendants in white-collar cases are normally afforded the right to self-surrender to authorities at the Manhattan DA's downtown headquarters, where fingerprints are taken and mugshots snapped.

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Secret Service agents are certain to accompany the former president throughout the booking process and court appearances.

The DA's office has been investigating a $130,000 hush-money payment that Trump's then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, has said under oath that he made at the Trump's direction to the adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 election.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to five felonies connected to the payment, including tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations, after the Manhattan US attorney's office opened a criminal investigation into the matter.

Cohen has been a key witness in the DA's office's investigation and testified before a grand jury twice this week. Tacopina told Insider that as of late Friday afternoon, the defense has not had any indication that an indictment has been voted on and filed.

However, NBC News reported that multiple law enforcement agencies are discussing increasing security around the downtown Manhattan courthouse at which Trump would be arraigned in the event of an indictment.

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Trump alluded to a possible indictment in a vitriolic Truth Social post early Saturday, writing that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday. But his lawyer could not confirm the information.

"President Trump is basing this on press reports," his lawyer, Susan Necheles, told Insider of the Tuesday date.

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