Donte Mills, criminal and civil attorney at Mills & Edwards, LLP, talks about the implications of former president Donald Trump's indictment. 

Donte Mills, criminal and civil attorney at Mills &amp; Edwards, LLP, talks about the implications of former president Donald Trump's indictment.&nbsp;

Wake Up With Cheddar

 Criminal Attorney Talks About What to Expect Next From the Trump Indictment  

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back. Let's get to this morning's need to know headlines. History has been made in the United States. Former president, Donald Trump is now the first current or former president to face criminal charges. The former president has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in paying hush money to an adult film star on the eve of the 2016 election. The exact charges are still unknown as the indictment is sealed, but CNN is reporting that Trump faces more than 30 counts that indictment of the former president, as you mentioned remaining under seal, which means the specific charge or charges have not been made public just yet. But joining us now to break down what we can expect next on this historic indictment is Dante Mills criminal and civil attorney over at Mills and Edwards L LP. Dante such a place up early. So we hear potentially Trump might be arraigned on Tuesday but sort of break down how this is all going to maybe potentially work out here. Well, here's the thing. This is the first time in history that a former president uh will have to face criminal charges. So it's going to be a little tricky how they pull this off because you have to remember as a former president, President Trump still has secret service detail. So he's going to have to go in, he's gonna get mug shotted and fingerprinted and then he's going to be walked to the judge who's going to arraign him. And that simply means the judge is gonna formally let him know that he has been charged and tell him what those charges are. And then his attorneys are going to have to announce whether he's pleading guilty or innocent to those charges. Now, we can assume, and I've dealt with these issues a lot with the District Attorney's office in New York. I'm certain that they've had contact with President Trump's legal team, they're coordinating the time, um, and how he's going to turn himself in. I'm certain they've also had some conversations with his legal team about what charges he's going to face so that they can be prepared. But this is something that, uh, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny around. There's a lot of people that's weighing in. So it's going to be a test on the legal system because people are going to challenge whether these charges should have been brought in the first place and then how legitimate they are to that point. I mean, so let's just say CNN is correct and they're reporting, there's 30 charges. I've seen reports maybe there's a half a dozen or more that are charges that could be in here. Where are these charges coming from? Could this potentially be one check given to Michael Cohen? That's one charge something. Another check could be another charge where potentially are these 30 charges coming from? Yes. So we're doing a little bit of speculating but you know, uh there could be one incident that happened, for example, the check, the Stormy Daniels and that could generate multiple charges in and of itself. But we do know that the District Attorney's office had conversations with more than just Michael Cohen with hope hicks with Kellyanne Conway, all who worked with very closely with President Trump. And there could be additional information. We understand that these charges are going to be based around his business dealings and whether they were fraudulent also based around campaign finance laws and whether or not some of those laws were broken and that he was aware that those laws were broken. So this could span more than just the stormy Daniel incident. This could go well into his political campaign and how they were operating their books and, and, and how they were listing out the money received and what was happening to it while we're trying to avoid speculation. Could Trump ultimately end up in jail? And what does this mean for the federal investigation here? The short answer to that question is, yes. Anybody who's facing charges could end up in jail. Even if it's a misdemeanor charge, there's a, a year sentence that they, that could happen if it's a felony charge for these business dealings. We're generally talking about a four year sentence that could happen. And imagine that what happens if a former president has to go to jail again? What happened to that secret service detail? Is he protected while he's in the system? Those are questions that no one has ever had to answer, but it looks like we're going to have to in this situation, at least as he faces those charges. Now, as far as the federal case, things are going to continue on. And I think these other areas like Georgia who was investigating Trump federally where Trump was being investigated, they're going to be emboldened that Trump was already indicted so that it's almost like the seal is broken. And I think we can expect more charges to be coming from different jurisdictions because we know there's a lot of investigations that's ongoing much for this breakdown we will see in the next hour, Dante Mills, criminal and civil attorney at Mills and Edwards L LP.