How true was Trump's speech at Mar-a-Lago last night?
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What we covered here
In his first speech since pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts, former President Donald Trump railed against the Manhattan district attorney and the indictment.
It’s the first time a former president has faced criminal charges. The charges stem from an investigation into a 2016 hush money payment to an adult film actress.
Prosecutors alleged the former president sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election and was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information.
Trump appeared in a New York City court Tuesday where he heard the charges against him. Trump denies all wrongdoing and his lawyers have said they’ll fight to get the charges dropped.
Trump’s team has until August 8 to file any motions and the prosecution will respond by September 19. Judge Juan Merchan said he will rule on the motions at the next in-person hearing, scheduled for December 4.
The first was that while Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case might cite solid evidence of alleged wrongdoing by Donald Trump, his legal theory might prove too vague, complex and seem like too much of a throwback to a 7-year-old election to be an easy sell to the public.
The other was that Trump would respond with such fury and incitement that he would rip even deeper divides in a nation estranged by his aberrant presidency and stoke new turmoil that could further damage vital political and judicial institutions.
Both of those worst-of-all-worlds scenarios came true on a day that Trump described as “SURREAL” in a social media post sent as he motorcaded to court to turn himself in.
The result is that another grim and even tragic chapter may lie ahead for a country that is still far from working through the fallout from Trump’s single term as it girds for yet another bitter election.
These are the next key dates in the Trump indictment
From CNN's Lauren del Valle
Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with his attorneys Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles, Joe Tacopina and Boris Epshteyn during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court on April 4 in New York.
(Andrew Kelly/Pool/Reuters/Getty Images)
Following former President Donald Trump’s arraignment, prosecutors said they expect to produce the bulk of the discovery in the next 65 days.
Trump’s team has until August 8 to file any motions and the prosecution will respond by September 19. Judge Juan Merchan said he will rule on the motions at the next in-person hearing, scheduled for December 4.
Trump attorney Jim Trusty said Tuesday he expects “robust” motions to challenge the case and hopes they can succeed in stopping the case.
If not, Trusty said he expects Trump’s attorneys will “figure out if there’s a way to try to push this earlier” than the December 4 hearing.
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Trump was arraigned in Manhattan Tuesday — here's how it played out and what happens next
From CNN's Jeremy Herb, Kara Scannell and Lauren del Valle
Former President Donald Trump arrives for his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court Tuesday afternoon.
Trump surrendered and was placed under arrest Tuesday before he was arraigned in a historic and unprecedented court appearance, in which the former president heard the charges against him for the first time. While the arraignment was routine, the case is now poised to linger over Trump’s 2024 candidacy as he fights the charges both in court and in public.
What prosecutors are alleging: Prosecutors alleged that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs.
Trump was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including an illegal payment of $130,000 that was ordered by the defendant to suppress the negative information that would hurt his campaign, prosecutors alleged.
Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” according to the charging documents.
Trump’s Tuesday night speech: After the arraignment, Trump immediately flew back to Florida. He held an event with his supporters Tuesday evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where Trump made his public case against the indictment and previewed how he intends to fight against the charges politically as he runs again for the White House in 2024.
While he was warned by Judge Juan Merchan during Tuesday’s arraignment not to make comments that could “jeopardize the rule of law” or create civil unrest, Trump railed later that evening against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge himself.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America, never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” Trump said.
“It’s an insult to our country,” he added.
The next dates to watch for: Trump’s team has until August 8 to file any motions and the prosecution will respond by September 19. Judge Juan Merchan said he will rule on the motions at the next in-person hearing, scheduled for December 4.
An “upset” Trump surrounds himself with admirers after his arraignment
From CNN's Kristen Holmes
Former President Trump was “upset” after “an emotional day” a source close to the former president tells CNN.
“Who wouldn’t want to be with people that adore him after that?” the source said of the former president.
Trump ended the day eating dinner on the patio of his Mar-a-Lago club, surrounded by club members, family and some of his staunchest supporters on the hill, including Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, another source present told CNN.
Following uncharacteristically brief remarks after his arraignment, Trump was seen DJ-ing from a laptop amid his supporters, and at one point chatting with far-right figure Roger Stone.
“It was a long day,” a third source said of Tuesday’s historic events.
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Trump delivered a barrage of false claims in first post-arraignment address. Here's a look at the facts
From CNN's Daniel Dale
Former President Donald Trump applauds at an event at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
(Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters)
Former President Donald Trump made a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night after he was arraigned in Manhattan on felony charges of falsifying business records — and delivered a barrage of false claims that have been previously debunked.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all the charges Tuesday.
The former president was repeatedly inaccurate when he pivoted to the subject of the federal investigation into his handling of official governments. He also repeated some of his favorite falsehoods on a variety of other subjects.
George Soros and the district attorney: As he has on social media in the last month, Trump invoked liberal billionaire donor George Soros while criticizing District Attorney Alvin Bragg in his speech on Tuesday night — claiming that Bragg is a “radical left, George Soros-backed prosecutor.”
Facts First: This needs context. Soros did not make any donations to Bragg’s 2021 election campaign, and a Soros spokesperson, Michael Vachon, told CNN that the two men have never once communicated in any way; there is no evidence that Soros had any role in Bragg’s decision to prosecute Trump. However, Soros, a longtime supporter of Democratic district attorney candidates who favor criminal justice reform, did support Bragg’s election campaign indirectly: he was a major donor to a liberal political action committee, Color of Change PAC, that says it spent just over $500,000 on an independent expenditure effort in support of Bragg’s candidacy.
Former presidents’ handling of documents after leaving the White House: Defending his handling of government documents, which is the subject of an ongoing federal investigation, Trump repeated his false claim that that several other former presidents took documents with them upon leaving the White House.
Trump claimed in his Tuesday speech that “openly taking boxes of documents and mostly clothing and other things to my home” is something “which President Obama has done.” He continued, “The Bushes have done. Jimmy Carter’s done. Ronald Reagan is done. Everybody’s done.”
Facts First: This is false, as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) itself pointed out in a statement last year; there is no evidence that previous presidents did anything like what Trump did after the Presidential Records Act took effect in 1981 (beginning with the Reagan administration). In reality, NARA was granted custody of the presidential records of former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and both George Bushes as soon as these presidents left office, as required by the Presidential Records Act, and it was NARA, not those presidents, that moved those documents to temporary archival facilities — facilities managed by NARA.
NARA said in an October statement that it gained physical and legal custody of Obama, Reagan, H.W. Bush and W. Bush’s records, as well of those of President Bill Clinton, “when those presidents left office.” It said of the temporary facilities to which the documents were moved: “All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees. Reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.”
Inflation: Trump claimed that the United States has “an economy that has been crippled by the biggest inflation we have seen in more than 60 years.”
Facts First: Trump’s “60 years” claim is an exaggeration, though the inflation rate does remain high by historical standards.
Last June, the year-over-year inflation rate hit its highest level since late 1981, 9.1%. But about 41 years does not round to “60 years,” much less “more than 60 years”. The actual highest year-over-year inflation rate for the last 60 years is 14.8% (in early 1980), far higher than mid-2022 levels. More importantly, year-over-year inflation has now declined for eight straight months, hitting 6% in February 2023 — not even close to the 60-year high.
This Trump claim is an example of how the former president tends to increase his exaggerated figures over time. At a campaign rally in Texas in late March, he claimed — also incorrectly — that the country had the highest inflation in “50 years.”
Fact check: Trump makes false claims about the Presidential Records Act
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
FormerPresident Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
(Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Former president Donald Trump claimed Tuesday night that the Presidential Records Act requires prolonged negotiations over the return of documents — while denouncing the August federal search of his Mar-a-Lago property.
He said: “Just so everyone knows, I come under what’s known as the Presidential Records Act, which was designed and approved by Congress long ago just for this reason. Under the act, I’m supposed to negotiate with NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration.”
He went on to disparage NARA.
Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. The Presidential Records Act says that, the moment a president leaves office, the National Archives and Records Administration gets custody and control of all presidential records from his administration. Nothing in the law says there should be a negotiation between a former president and NARA over a former president’s return of presidential documents – much less that there should have been a monthslong battle after NARA first contacted Trump’s team in 2021 to try to get some of the records that had not been handed over at the end of his presidency.
Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation at NARA, told CNN in an email last week (when we fact-checked a similar false claim by Trump): “The former President is simply wrong as a matter of law. As of noon on January 20, 2021, when President Biden took office, all presidential records of the Trump Administration came into the legal custody of the Archivist of the United States. Full stop. That means no presidential records ever should have been transferred to Mar-a-Lago, and there was no further talking or negotiating to be had.”
Timothy Naftali, a CNN presidential historian, New York University professor and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, described Trump’s claim as “nonsense” and said the former president’s description of the Presidential Records Act is “a matter of fantasy,” concocted to allow Trump to “pretend that he’s a victim.”
The law, Naftali said in an interview last week, makes clear that documents Trump had at Mar-a-Lago are presidential records that legally belong to the public and are legally required to be in NARA’s custody. The law provides “no room for debates and discussions between presidential advisers and the National Archives at the end a presidency” about such records, Naftali said.
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Fact check: Trump repeats lie about 2020 election
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Former President Donald Trump repeated one of his familiar lies about the 2020 election he lost, in his Tuesday night speech from his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
Trump claimed that there were “millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes, and all caught on government cameras.”
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Former Manhattan DA says current DA has "done the work necessary to bring this case forward"
From CNN's Jack Forrest
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, who first began the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged role in hush-money payments but chose not to indict, said current DA Alvin Bragg “has done the work necessary to bring this case forward.”
Vance told CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday night, “I think there are factual allegations that at least myself personally, I cannot recall that we were aware of,” in response to whether Bragg had collected any new evidence since Vance left DA’s office.
He added, “There’s no doubt that district attorney Bragg has dug deep, believes in this case, and I think we need to have confidence that he has done the work necessary to bring this case forward.”
The former DA also commented on Trump’s speech following his arraignment, calling his attacks on Bragg, as well as the judge presiding over the case, and their families, “legally risky.”
Vance said Trump could run up against obstruction charges specific to the New York code which make it illegal to obstruct government functions through threats or intimidation.
“If that were to happen in a superseding indictment, it could turn a perceptually weak indictment on technical violations of law into something a jury would understand and be much more concerned about and elevate the strength of the overall indictment against the president,” he said.
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9th US Circuit Court of Appeals orders Stormy Daniels to pay Trump $120,000 in legal fees
From CNN's Dan Berman
Stormy Daniels exits the federal court building in lower Manhattan on April 16, 2018.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images/FILE)
Donald Trump had a substantial victory in another court, Tuesday, 3,000 miles away from his New York legal drama.
Daniels was ordered to pay Trump’s attorneys just over $120,000 in legal fees. That’s on top of the over $500,000 in court-ordered payments to Trump attorneys she’s already been ordered to pay.
The civil litigation is officially unrelated to Trump’s arrest and charges filed against him in New York — but both involved Daniels, who was paid $130,000 in hush money during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep quiet about an affair. Trump denies the affair.
Daniels sued Trump in 2018 after Trump called an allegation by Daniels that an unknown man threatened her in a parking lot to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump a “total con job” in a tweet.
Otero later ordered Daniels to pay roughly $293,000 in legal fees. Daniels was also ordered to pay another $245,000 in fees after losing another appeal.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, had asked the appeals court to knock down another award. The court declined her request.
“Clifford’s argument that the fee request is unreasonable and excessive is not well-founded,” the 9th Circuit filing states.
“Trump’s attorneys reasonably spent the requested 183.35 hours preparing a motion to dismiss, a reply to the opposition to the motion, two extension motions, the answering brief, and the fee application,” it added.
Trump’s attorney Harmeet Dhillon celebrated the ruling in a tweet Tuesday.
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Fact check: Trump’s claims on inflation
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Former President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, April 4.
(Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that the United States has “an economy that has been crippled by the biggest inflation we have seen in more than 60 years.”
Last June, the year-over-year inflation rate hit its highest level since late 1981, 9.1%. But about 41 years does not round to “60 years,” much less “more than 60 years.” The actual highest year-over-year inflation rate for the last 60 years is 14.8% (in early 1980), far higher than mid-2022 levels. More importantly, year-over-year inflation has now declined for eight straight months, hitting 6% in February 2023 — not even close to the 60-year high.
Michael Cohen on Trump indictment: "I will continue to speak truth to power"
(Source: CNN)
Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to ex-President Donald Trump, said he believes “everyone who commits a crime” should be held accountable and that Trump’s case is now up to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team.
He assured that Manhattan District Attorney Bragg will provide “a significant amount of documentary evidence that will corroborate” allegations made in Trump’s now-unsealed indictment.
Cohen also criticized statements made by the former president on social media.
Some background: Cohen pleaded guilty to nine federal crimes including tax fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations for helping pay off two women who threatened to go public with past alleged affairs with Trump just before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affairs.
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Trump makes public case against indictment. Here are the key lines from his Mar-a-Lago remarks
From CNN's David Wright
Former President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Tuesday.
(Evan Vucci/AP)
Former President Donald Trump condemned the criminal charges he faced in New York Tuesday night, saying to a crowd of supporters that “the only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
Trump flew back to his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida following his arraignment in Manhattan.
Trump went on to group the indictment — stemming from a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign — with various other legal and political threats he’s faced, dismissing them all.
He repeated his claim that the prosecution is meant to derail his candidacy.
Throughout his remarks, Trump was dismissive of the case presented by prosecutors.
Trump also went to attack the other legal threats still percolating, including an investigation in Georgia into election interference, a DOJ investigation into his handling of classified documents post-presidency and an investigation by the New York attorney general into the Trump Organization.
Trump said, of the case being led by Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis, that she is “doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call, even more perfect than the one I made with the president of Ukraine.”
On the Justice Department investigation, overseen by Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump said: “This lunatic special prosecutor named Jack Smith – I wonder what it was prior to a change – who others of his ilk say, he’s even worse than they are, is only looking at Trump.”
Trump also criticized a lack of focus on President Joe Biden’s classified documents.
Finally, Trump went on to condemn New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the Trump Organization saying she, “campaigned on ‘I will get Trump.’ I will get him. This was her campaign. Never ran for office. I will get him. Her name is Letitia James,” he said.
Toward the end of his remarks, Trump returned to criticizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the charges leveled against him Tuesday in New York.
He also directed sharp attacks at Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the hush money case, saying, “I have a Trump-hating judge.”
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Fact check: Trump repeats false claim about military equipment left in Afghanistan
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Taliban special force fighters arrive inside the Hamid Karzai International Airport after the U.S. military's withdrawal, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 31, 2021.
(Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi/AP/File)
Former President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday, as he has before, that the US left behind “$85 billion worth of the best military equipment in the world” when it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Facts First: Trump’s $85 billion figure is false. While a significant quantity of military equipment that had been provided by the US to Afghan government forces was indeed abandoned to the Taliban upon the US withdrawal, the Defense Department has estimated that this equipment had been worth about $7.1 billion — a chunk of about $18.6 billion worth of equipment provided to Afghan forces between 2005 and 2021. And some of the equipment left behind was rendered inoperable before US forces withdrew.
As other fact-checkers have previously explained, the “$85 billion” is a rounded-up figure (it’s closer to $83 billion) for the total amount of money Congress has appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. A minority of this funding was for equipment.
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Trump attacked his case's judge — hours after the same judge warned case participants on their public comments
From CNN's Marshall Cohen
Judge Juan Merchan at his office in New York County Criminal Court in October 2022.
(Ahmed Gaber/The New York Times/Redux)
As former President Donald Trump attacked the judge and prosecutor in his case tonight from Mar-a-Lago, here’s a reminder of what Judge Juan Merchan told participants in the case earlier today during the arraignment:
What Trump said tonight: After the arraignment in New York, Trump immediately flew back to Florida. He held an event with his supporters Tuesday evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where Trump made his public case against the indictment.
Toward the end of his remarks, Trump returned to criticizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the charges leveled against him today in New York.
He also directed sharp attacks at Merchan, overseeing the case, saying, “I have a Trump-hating judge.”
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Fact check: Trump repeats false claim that former presidents took millions of documents after leaving office
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Former President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Tuesday.
(Evan Vucci/AP)
Defending his handling of government documents, which is the subject of an ongoing federal investigation, former President Donald Trump repeated his false claim that several other former presidents took documents with them upon leaving the White House.
Trump claimed in his Tuesday speech that “openly taking boxes of documents and mostly clothing and other things to my home” is something “which President Obama has done.” He continued, “The Bushes have done. Jimmy Carter’s done. Ronald Reagan is done. Everybody’s done.”
Facts First: This is false, as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) itself pointed out in a statement last year; there is no evidence that previous presidents did anything like what Trump did after the Presidential Records Act took effect in 1981 (beginning with the Reagan administration).In reality,NARA was granted custody of the presidential records of former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and both George Bushes as soon as these presidents left office, as required by the Presidential Records Act, and it was NARA, not those presidents, that moved those documents to temporary archival facilities – facilities managed by NARA.
NARA said in an October statement that it gained physical and legal custody of Obama, Reagan, H.W. Bush and W. Bush’s records, as well of those of President Bill Clinton, “when those presidents left office.” It said of the temporary facilities to which the documents were moved: “All such temporary facilities met strict archival and security standards, and have been managed and staffed exclusively by NARA employees. Reports that indicate or imply that those Presidential records were in the possession of the former Presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading.”
In other words, there is no equivalence between Trump’s handling of presidential documents and those previous presidents’. In those other cases, the presidential documents were in NARA’s possession and stored securely and professionally. In Trump’s case, the presidential documents found in haphazard amateur storage at Mar-a-Lago, including documents marked classified, were in Trump’s possession despite numerous attempts by both NARA and the Justice Department to get them back.
Fact check: Trump repeats claim about George Soros and the district attorney
From CNN’s Daniel Dale
Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the day of his court appearance in New York after being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury following a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday.
(Marco Bello/Reuters)
As he has on social media in the last month, former President Donald Trump invoked liberal billionaire donor George Soros while criticizing District Attorney Alvin Bragg in his speech on Tuesday night — claiming that Bragg is a “radical left, George Soros-backed prosecutor.”
Vachon told CNN: “Between 2016 and 2022, George Soros personally and Democracy PAC (a PAC to which Mr. Soros has contributed funds) have together contributed roughly $4 million to Color of Change’s PAC, including $1 million in May 2021. None of those funds were earmarked for Alvin Bragg’s campaign. George Soros and Alvin Bragg have never meet in person or spoken by telephone, email, Zoom etc. There has been no contact between the two.”
Soros has been a frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories painting the Jewish philanthropist as a puppetmaster behind various US and international events. Rashad Robinson, Color of Change president, called Trump and his allies’ latest invocations of Soros both “antisemitic” and “anti-Black.” He told CNN the attacks are an overstatement of both Soros’ role in the PAC’s decision-making and the PAC’s role in Bragg’s election victory.
No gag order, but judge wants Trump to avoid inciting violence or “civil unrest”
From CNN's Dan Berman
Judge Juan Merchan at his office in New York County Criminal Court on October 21, 2022.
(Ahmed Gaber/The New York Times/Redux)
Judge Juan Merchan did not impose – nor was he asked to impose – a gag order on either party during Trump’s arraignment Tuesday afternoon.
“Such restraints are the most serious and least intolerable on First Amendment rights. That does apply doubly to Mr. Trump, because he is a candidate for the presidency of the United States,” Merchan said during the hearing, according to a court transcript.
A potential gag order was a talking point among Trump supporters leading into Tuesday, suggesting the justice system was stacked against the former president.
Merchan, however, urged both sides to urge their clients and witnesses to watch their behavior, though he specified it was a “request” and not an “order.”
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Trump says he "never thought anything like this could happen in America" following arraignment
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference following his court appearance over an alleged 'hush-money' payment, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 4.
(Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump said he “never thought anything like this could happen in America” Tuesday night after he was arraigned in New York City.
The former president emerged to a crowd of his supporters accompanied by the song “Proud to be an American.” The crowd chanted “USA” as he made his way to a microphone.
He mentioned the 2020 presidential election, current President Joe Biden and claimed “our country is going to hell” to which the audience applauded.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating Trump in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.
The indictment by a New York grand jury was unsealed Tuesday, providing the public and Trump’s legal team with details about the charges against him for the first time. Trump on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges.
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NOW: Trump speaks from Florida following arraignment
Former President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a press conference following his court appearance over an alleged 'hush-money' payment, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 4.
(Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump is delivering remarks from his Mar-A-Lago property in Florida following his arraignment in New York City earlier Tuesday.
Prosecutors alleged Trump was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including an illegal payment of $130,000 that was ordered by the defendant to suppress information that would hurt his campaign.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business in the first degree.
