The US Secret Service is coordinating security plans with the New York Police Department when former President Donald Trump is indicted and tried in an open court in Manhattan, according to sources.
The two agencies had a call Monday to discuss logistics, including courtroom security and how Trump would potentially surrender for booking and processing, according to sources briefed on the discussions.
White-collar criminal defendants in New York are often allowed to negotiate a surrender.
On Monday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he was “confident” the city was prepared for any protests related to a potential indictment of the former president.
“We are monitoring the comments on social media, and the NYPD is doing their normal role of making sure there are no inappropriate actions in the city,” Adams said Monday in an unrelated press release. conference. “We’re confident we can do that.”
Writing on his Truth Social platform Saturday, Trump called for protests against what he said was his expected arrest on Tuesday, in connection with the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into the 2016 hush payment of the adult artist. in the movie Stormy Daniels.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, paid Daniels $130,000 in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign to allegedly keep her quiet about an affair she admitted to having with Trump. The former president denied the activity and his lawyers framed the funds as extortion payments.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is considering whether to charge Trump for falsifying business records, after the Trump Organization paid Cohen for the fee and then logged the payment as a legal expense, sources told ABC News. Trump called the payment “a private contract between two parties” and denied any wrongdoing.
Adams said city officials had heard “numerous reports” about a potential indictment, but told reporters he had not met Bragg or spoken to him about the matter.
Online posts indicate that there have been some small protests organized by various groups of chiefs. But Ali Alexander, the conservative activist behind the “Stop the Steal” movement, has publicly said that his group will not organize any protests.
In Palm Beach County, Florida, sources confirmed to ABC News that authorities are preparing for protests near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate if the former president is indicted.
On Sunday a small group of pro-Trump demonstrators gathered on the bridge that connects Palm Beach to the mainland. They said they will be back with more people on Tuesday or sooner if Trump is impeached, according to reports.
An intelligence bulletin issued Sunday by the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency in Washington, DC, and obtained by ABC News, says some extremists consider Trump’s possible indictment a “line in the sand.”
“Potential criminal justice actions taken against a former US president – or actions believed to have been taken against a former president – remain a ‘line in the sand’ for Domestic Violent Extremists (DVE ) communities and thus have the potential to manifest violence. toward government targets or political officials,” said a bulletin from the DC Fusion Center, a threat intelligence group within the agency.
The bulletin said that Trump’s social media post in which he called for protests “was met with an immediate uptick in violent online rhetoric and expressed threats to target government and law enforcement who were deemed which involved a political persecution of the former president, as well as calls for ‘Civil War’ more generally. In related posts observed by the DC Fusion Center, many described the potential arrest of former president as a ‘red line’ or ‘line in the sand,’ after which violent action is the only possible outcome.”
“This escalation of rhetoric related to an alleged indictment against the former president represents the most significant 24-hour traction Fusion Center has observed since the August 2022 search warrant service at Mar-a-Lago, ” said the bulletin.
The FBI has warned local and state police agencies across the country about concerns related to a possible Trump indictment, but the bureau said it had no additional information.
“The FBI continues to closely monitor a potential Indictment of the former President which open source reporting indicates may occur in the coming weeks,” the FBI said in a warning obtained by ABC News.
“At this time there is no information to confirm this charge nor is there any information to indicate that violence or criminal activity was planned,” the FBI said, adding there was no indication that anything “other than protected First Amendment action is planned.”
The US Capitol Police also issued their own assessment of potential violence, saying they saw “no current indication of threats directed at the US Capitol or Members of Congress” as it is related to Trump.
The organization “has not yet seen any sign of large-scale organized protests and/or violence, as (it) happened until January 6, 2021,” the assessment, obtained by ABC News, said.
No current or former US president has ever been indicted for criminal conduct.
ABC News’ Jay O’Brien contributed to this report.
