POLITICS

A sitting or former United States president has been indicted on criminal charges for the first time in our nation’s history. As a result, the Tuesday, April 4 episode of “General Hospital” was preempted by ABC due to ongoing ABC News coverage of the historic event. The episode is now scheduled to air on Wednesday, April 5, and pushes all previously scheduled episodes forward by a day.

Additional preemptions are likely as the case progresses after the criminal indictment against former President Donald J. Trump was unsealed on Tuesday, which included 34 felony counts of falsification of business records in the first degree, NPR reported.

Trump appeared for his arraignment in a Manhattan courtroom at around 2:28 p.m. ET and left at 3:25 p.m. He sat between his lawyers, Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles, while officers from the NYPD stood behind him.

“Today’s unsealing of the indictment shows that the rule of law died in this country,” Tacopina told the media outside the courthouse. “If this man’s name was not Donald J. Trump there is no scenario we’d all be here today.”

A grand jury agreed to indict Trump after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg presented evidence of multiple allegations against the former president, including orchestrating a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election, claims of payment to women who were intimately involved with Trump, including an alleged $130,000 payment to silence Stormy Daniels. 

For more on the story and a complete list of charges, visit NPR.