Former US President Donald Trump has claimed that the Manhattan District Attorney's office has indicated that he will be arrested on Tuesday as prosecutors consider charges over a hush money payment to an adult film actress.
Without providing evidence, Mr Trump said on his Truth Social platform that "illegal leaks" from the Manhattan District Attorney's office indicated that he would be arrested.
He did not detail what the charges would be.
"Illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney's office...indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven...the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week," Mr Trump wrote.
Mr Trump did not say he had been formally notified of forthcoming charges and provided no evidence of leaks from the district attorney's office. He did not discuss the possible charges in the post.
Earlier this year Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office began presenting evidence to a grand jury investigating a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen, Mr Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, made to Ms Daniels in the waning days of Mr Trump's successful 2016 election campaign.
A spokesperson for Mr Bragg declined to comment.
Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with Mr Trump a decade earlier.
Mr Trump has denied the affair happened and called the investigation by Mr Bragg, a Democrat, a witch hunt.
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he was directing relevant committees to investigate whether federal funds are being used to interfere in elections by what he described as a politically motivated prosecution of Mr Trump.
"An outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA," Mr McCarthy said in a tweet, without naming the district attorney.
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Mr Trump was Republican president from 2017 to 2021 and has said he will make a bid to return to the White House in the 2024 US presidential election.
Earlier this month Mr Bragg's office invited Mr Trump to testify before the grand jury probing the payments, according to Mr Trump's lawyer, Susan Necheles.
Legal experts said that was a sign that an indictment was close.
In 2018 Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations tied to his arranging payments to Ms Daniels and another woman, among other crimes.
He has said Mr Trump directed him to make the payments.
The US Attorney's office in Manhattan did not charge Mr Trump with a crime.
Cohen testified before the grand jury on Monday and again on Wednesday, according to his lawyer, Lanny Davis. Grand jury proceedings are not public.
Ms Daniels' lawyer said she spoke with prosecutors last week.
If the Manhattan district attorney were to indict Mr Trump, the 76-year-old would become the first former president to be charged with a crime.
Yesterday his lawyer told CNBC that his client would surrender to face criminal charges if he was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.
The probe is one of several legal woes Mr Trump faces as he seeks the Republican nomination for the presidency.
He is also confronting a state-level criminal probe in Georgia over efforts to overturn the 2020 results in that state.
A special counsel named by US Attorney General Merrick Garland is currently investigating Mr Trump's handling of classified government documents after leaving office, as well his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Last year Mr Bragg's office won the conviction of the Trump Organisation on tax fraud charges.
However Mr Bragg declined to charge Mr Trump himself with financial crimes related to his business practices, prompting two prosecutors who worked on the probe to resign.
Mr Trump leads his early rivals for his party's nomination, holding the support of 43% of Republicans in a February Reuters/Ipsos poll, compared with 31% for his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has not yet announced his candidacy.
