Former US President and front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records included in an indictment against him, appearing in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday after surrendering to police to face the unprecedented charges for the first time, said a media reports.

 

The charges were handed down in an indictment by a grand jury investigating the circumstances surrounding a payment made on Trump's behalf to an adult film star in 2016 in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair, which Trump has denied.

 

Trump, who has called the charges politically motivated, held his fist in the air in a gesture to reporters as he departed Trump Tower.

 

Looking somber, Trump said nothing as he walked past police and through a hallway in the courthouse before entering the courtroom for the arraignment proceeding. A photo taken by a photographer in the courtroom authorized by the judge showed Trump sitting at the defense table, flanked by his lawyers, reorted Reuters.

 

Trump's Secret Service motorcade left Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan for the courthouse shortly after 1 p.m., cutting through New York traffic with a police escort as spectators looked on. When his motorcade arrived, Trump waved to the crowd and cameras before entering the courthouse to turn himself in. 

 

The indictment against Trump charges him with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy in connection with hush money payments to two women before the 2016 presidential election.

 

The media dubbed this as an extraordinary moment in US history, as Trump also becomes the first US president who faces criminal charges. 

 

The Republican party leader who had earlier announced his bid to run for 2024 US Presidential elections faces multiple election-related investigations. 

 

Earlier in the day, his plane – painted in red, white and blue with ‘TRUMP’ in big letters on the side and an image of the American flag on the tail – arrived at LaGuardia Airport in Queens after a 3-1/2 hour flight from West Palm Beach near his Florida home.

 

Clad in a blue suit and wearing a red tie, Trump walked deliberately and alone down a flight of stairs from the airplane and climbed into an SUV for a drive in a motorcade to Trump Tower in Manhattan.

 

He got out of the vehicle, waved to people behind barricades set up by police for security purposes and walked into Trump Tower while making no public comments.

 

Beefing up his legal team, Trump hired Todd Blanche, a prominent white-collar criminal defence lawyer and former federal prosecutor, to join his defence, two sources familiar with the matter said.

 

Blanche and other Trump lawyers yesterday urged the judge not to allow videography, photography and radio coverage of the arraignment.

 

In a letter to the court, they argued against allowing such coverage, saying it would ‘exacerbate an already almost circus-like atmosphere around this case’ and ‘detract from both the dignity and decorum of the proceedings and courtroom’.

 

Scores of reporters and observers gathered near the lower Manhattan courthouse, as police arranged barricades. One of Trump’s strongest allies in Washington, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), spoke at a rally earlier in the day.

 

​​The Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation into the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, triggered in part by a series of Wall Street Journal articles in 2018, is the longest-running of several active criminal probes of Trump, reported The Wall Street Journal.

 

Hundreds of Donald Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters on Tuesday swarmed the streets around the courthouse in New York City.