FirstFT: Trump prepares to face charges

All eyes will be on New York today as Donald Trump becomes the first sitting or former US president to face criminal charges.

He spent the night at Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue speaking with legal advisers ahead of the Manhattan court appearance later today.

Authorities in New York are braced for protests and possible violence. Barricades have been erected outside the New York County Criminal Courthouse in Lower Manhattan to avoid any disruption to legal proceedings.

The former president, who is favourite to be the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, will attend the hearing where the charges will be read out and he will enter a plea of not guilty “very loudly and proudly”, his lawyer Joe Tacopina said on CNN on Sunday. 

The charges remain under seal but relate to hush money allegedly paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. It is claimed the $130,000 was paid to Daniels via attorney Michael Cohen to cover up an affair she claimed to have had with Trump years earlier.

The transactions were allegedly recorded as legal fees, and prosecutors will attempt to show that they were in fact made to protect Trump’s campaign, according to people familiar with the case, and therefore violated federal campaign finance law.

After the arraignment, which is expected to last no longer than 30 minutes, Trump will fly back to Florida where he is expected to give a speech to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago mansion this evening.

To prepare for the hearing here are some articles I recommend you read:

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: We get job openings data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and, separately, the latest on US manufacturing activity. Canada releases details of its February trade balance.

• Chicago votes for a new mayor: The race is between progressive Democrat Brandon Johnson and establishment favourite Paul Vallas.

• Nato: It’s a historic day for the western military alliance as it officially welcomes Finland, its 31st member, in a ceremony to be attended by US secretary of state Antony Blinken.

As always, thank you for reading FirstFT and let us know if you have any feedback at firstft@ft.com.

Five more top stories

1. Beijing should play a “constructive” role in influencing Russia to rein in its war, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the FT ahead of her visit to China with France’s Emmanuel Macron. Here’s what the two leaders hope to accomplish when they meet Xi Jinping.

2. Credit Suisse chair Axel Lehmann apologised to investors for the collapse of the 167-year-old Swiss bank at its final shareholder meeting as an independent business this morning. “It is a sad day. For all of you, and for us,” Lehmann told shareholders.

3. JPMorgan Chase executives allegedly joked about Jeffrey Epstein’s interest in young girls while the disgraced financier was a client of the US banking giant, lawyers for the US Virgin Islands have claimed. Read more from yesterday’s new court filing.

4. Clients asked to pull $4.5bn from the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, or Breit, in March, a 15 per cent increase in the level of requests from the previous month. The withdrawal requests came in even as Blackstone executives were promoting investment opportunities in the sector.

5. Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor Group has agreed to merge its Ultimate Fighting Championship with World Wrestling Entertainment, forming a new listed entity with an enterprise value of $21.4bn. Under the all-stock deal, Endeavor will own 51 per cent of the new business and WWE shareholders will retain the remaining 49 per cent, the companies announced yesterday.

The Big Read

Next week, Northern Ireland will celebrate 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement. But while the Irish Republican Army has given up its long war to oust British rule, loyalist paramilitaries still intimidate and coerce people with “kneecappings” and some communities are beset by drugs and debt.

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Chart of the day

The European Central Bank has called for a clampdown on commercial property funds to tackle the risk that a downturn in the €1tn sector could trigger a liquidity crisis if investors rushed to withdraw their money.

Take a break from the news

Ask business or political leaders in Copenhagen for lunch, and they will invariably suggest smørrebrød. But ask them for dinner, and the options will be much more varied. Here’s FT Globetrotter’s insider guide to the top five restaurants favoured by the city’s movers and shakers.

Additional contributions by Tee Zhuo and Emily Goldberg