Former President Donald Trump will “absolutely” be fingerprinted and have his mugshot taken if he is criminally charged in the Manhattan district attorney’s hush money investigation, his former lawyer Michael Cohen recently said.
Cohen made the remark Sunday during an interview with MSNBC host Alex Witt, The Hill reported.
“Do I think that Donald will be fingerprinted, swabbed, mugshotted? Absolutely,” Cohen said.
However, he added that he doesn’t believe Trump will be handcuffed or perp-walked into the courthouse in front of the public.
“Do I think he’ll be handcuffed? No. And in fact, I don’t want to see Donald Trump handcuffed and paraded through… because I respect the institution of the presidency,” Cohen said.
“Could you imagine our allies and our adversaries, how they could either enjoy this or despise us as a direct result?” he added.
Cohen has testified multiple times before a grand jury that is expected to decide soon on whether to press criminal charges against a former president for the first time in U.S. history. The case reportedly centers on alleged 2016 attempts to buy the silence of two women who said they had sex with Trump, which he denies.
Cohen was sentenced to prison in 2018 on charges related to those payments – $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal – which he admitted making on Trump’s behalf.
Criminal charges against Trump have been widely expected to come early this week, though a Tuesday report suggested an arraignment would not happen till next week. Over the weekend, Trump had announced that he expected to be arrested Tuesday and called for his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK.”
The New York Police Department was filmed on Monday putting up steel barricades outside the Manhattan Criminal Court.
