A detective investigator with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office will take a place in history on Tuesday afternoon by entering Trump, Donald J. on an online booking worksheet.
In the days leading up to this moment, Trump has raged about being railroaded and posted a photo of himself wielding a baseball bat beside a picture of Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. Trump predicted “death and destruction.”
But sometime after 2 p.m. Eastern Time, there will come a moment of intimate, total compliance between Trump and a Bragg investigator, a moment that accompanies every arrest, no matter how defiant the accused. The investigator—who has not yet been identified—will reach for one of Trump’s famously small hands as they stand side-by-side before a digital reader.
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Trump will be under arrest and not free to leave, even though he will be accompanied by a Secret Service detail. He will be given no choice but to comply as the investigator takes one of his fingers and rolls it on the surface of the reader, just as cops did on an ink pad and then a fingerprint card in earlier times. A screen will show Trump’s print even as it is being read.
What has not changed and what is universal to every arrest is the necessity for the suspect to turn over complete control to the arresting officer at this point. Should Trump be like most people who are new to being arrested, he will tense up and try to do it himself. The result will likely be the digital equivalent of a smudge.
In such circumstances, investigators tell suspects to relax and let them do it. They redo it if necessary—until the screen signals that this particular print has been accepted. The investigator will then have the option of either pressing a button or stepping on a foot pedal to proceed to the next finger. The advantage of the foot pedal is that it allows the arresting officer to proceed without letting go of the suspect’s hand.
The investigator will repeat the process for all 10 of Trump’s digits and both palms. Each clear print will record a moment when Trump momentarily had to let someone else take charge.
“It’s not going to be done his way, it’s going to be done the correct way,” a longtime D.A. detective investigator who will not be the officer in this particular case, told The Daily Beast. “It’s going to be interesting.”
The prints will be sent electronically to Albany to see if the suspect has any outstanding warrants. The check often takes around 20 minutes, but can stretch to an hour or more, depending on how busy the system is.
“Think of it as any other arrest,” the D.A. investigator said. “There’s a process that has to happen.”
As whenever a suspect is booked, the process for Trump will begin with the investigator who serves as the arresting officer completing an online booking worksheet. The name will be just another space to fill as the investigator proceeds on to the home address and a number of particulars, such as date of birth, height, weight and eye color. The section for hair color offers boxes for the usual hues as well as a space for other, which would include orange.
The form further inquires what the suspect was wearing at the time of the arrest—including the shoes—and whether they have scars, tattoos, or piercings. The arresting officer will enter his or her name and sign it. A supervisor will then review it.
Whether or not Trump should have been charged will not be an immediate issue. The only question will be whether the required details have been entered correctly. If so, the supervisor adds his signature in approval.
The confirmed information will be then entered into the Online Booking System, which will generate an arrest number, officially making Trump someone with a criminal record. The investigator will enter the number into Livescan, the system that records and stores digital fingerprints.
After Trump’s compliance is recorded print by print, one difference between this case and others is that he will almost certainly be allowed to wait in an office and an interview room—rather than a holding cell—until the Albany check is complete. The case will be ready to proceed to the arraignment.
Trump may or may not be photographed. He is one of a few people alive who can be universally identified without the aid of a mugshot.
If Trump is convicted of a felony, the fingerprints and the booking information will be retained for at least 25 years after the case is closed, and at least five years after his death.
Should Trump be acquitted, the fingerprints will be destroyed and his record will be expunged. But along with the arresting officer’s name, history will include a moment when Trump was trumped.
