Donald Trump will not be handcuffed when the former US president arrives in New York early next week to face the criminal charges against him, under the terms of a deal reached by Trump’s defense lawyers and Manhattan prosecutors, he said today the mogul’s defense attorney, Joe Tacopina;

According to CNN, the former president is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court next Tuesday.

Tacopina said in an interview that he expected the arrest to be made otherwise as a matter of routine next Tuesday, when Trump appears to face indictment following prosecutors’ investigation into payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence, according to during Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“I don’t know how things will turn out. There’s no manual to read on how you bring charges against a former president of the United States of America in a criminal court,” the lawyer stressed, noting that Trump and his defense team were surprised to hear the news of the criminal prosecution. “At first we were all shocked. We didn’t think we’d actually have to go through with it because there’s no crime in this case.”

Trump attack on judge

At the same time, the former US president launched an attack against Judge Juan Merchan, before whom he is expected to appear next Tuesday.

Calling the charges against him a “Witch Hunt,” Trump claimed in a post on Truth Social that the judge “HATES” him. It also stated that Merchan is “the same person who ‘led’ his 75-year-old former CFO, Allen Weiselberg, to take a ‘plea’ deal.”

Donald Trump faces criminal charges in the case of buying the silence of a porn star in 2016 and is expected to be handed over, possibly on Tuesday, to the justice in New York, a development without historical precedent for a former president of the United States, which Trump denounced yesterday in a speech for “political persecution” and denying his “innocence”.