Former President Donald Trump arrives in Manhattan ahead of his impeachment on Monday

NEW YORK — Donald Trump is expected to arrive in Manhattan Monday ahead of what is expected to be a historic indictment of a former president.

Sources say he will be staying at Trump Tower, where security has been tightened and nearby roads closed.

This criminal case has the potential to send a former president to prison for the first time in the United States.

Trump has been charged with around two dozen counts, including felonies, sources familiar with the charge told ABC News.

The Manhattan Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said in television interviews on Friday that he would “very aggressively” challenge the validity of the indictment against the Manhattan grand jury. Trump himself directed his anger at what he calls a “political persecution” on his social media platform at a new target: the judge who expected to hear the case.

As Trump and his attorneys prepared for his defense, the prosecutor in his hush money case defended the grand jury investigation that propelled him to trial because Republicans in Congress portrayed everything as politically motivated.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told three Republican House committee chairmen that such claims were “misleading and baseless” and dismissed Congress’s investigation of the grand jury trial — a confidential one by law.

“We urge you to desist from these inflammatory allegations, withdraw your request for information, and allow the criminal trial to proceed without unlawful political interference,” Bragg wrote to Representatives James Comer, Jim Jordan and Bryan Steil.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has vowed to use congressional oversight to investigate Bragg. Steil, Jordan and Comer have asked Bragg’s office for grand jury testimony, documents and copies of all communications with the Justice Department.

Trump’s indictment, announced Thursday, came after a grand jury investigation into hush money paid during the 2016 presidential campaign to quash allegations of an extramarital sexual encounter. The indictment itself has remained sealed, as is customary in New York prior to indictment.

Trump, a Republican, has denied any wrongdoing and has denounced the probe as “fraud,” “persecution,” injustice, and a political blow designed to damage his 2024 presidential bid.

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In fact, Trump was ordered to surrender on Friday, but his lawyers said the agency needed more time to make security preparations, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Even for defendants who turn themselves in, answering criminal complaints in New York generally means at least several hours incarceration while they are fingerprinted, photographed, and subjected to other procedures.

Bragg’s office said Thursday it had contacted Trump’s attorney to coordinate a handover. Prior to the court’s announcement of the arraignment date, Trump’s attorney Joseph Tacopina said Tuesday was the likely date for Trump to surrender.

The investigation looked into six-figure payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Both claim to have had sexual encounters with the married Trump years before he entered politics; He denies having sexual relations with either woman.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, his allies paid the women to bury their allegations. The editor of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story and is committed to it, in a deal brokered by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

After Cohen himself paid Daniels $130,000, Trump’s firm reimbursed him, added bonuses, and booked the payments to Cohen as legal expenses.

MORE: Trump responds after New York grand jury voted to impeach him

Federal prosecutors argued — in a 2018 criminal case against Cohen — that the payments amounted to illegal aid to Trump’s campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of campaign finance violations, but federal prosecutors did not take action against Trump, who was in the White House at the time. However, some of their court filings indirectly implicated him as someone who knew about the payment arrangements.

The New York indictment came as Trump wrangles with other investigations that could have serious legal ramifications.

In Atlanta, prosecutors are considering whether he committed any crimes when he tried to get Georgia officials to overturn his narrow 2020 election loss there to Joe Biden.

At the federal level, a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department is also investigating Trump’s efforts to uncover the results of the national election. In addition, the special counsel is investigating how and why Trump kept a cache of top-secret government documents at his club and Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, and whether the ex-president or his agents attempted to obstruct the investigation of those documents.

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Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Farnoush Amiri contributed from Washington.

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