A Manhattan grand jury has dramatically voted to indict Donald Trump over $130,000 in hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump is the first former president to face a criminal complaint, which is expected in the coming days.
It marks the end of a year-long investigation into hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016, allegedly to buy her to remain silent about their affair.
The indictment means he is the first former president to be charged with a crime and takes the country into uncharted legal and political territory as a presidential candidate now faces arrest and the prospect of a humiliating trial.
While Bragg’s case involves filing criminal charges against the president, it’s far from his only legal woe.
Trump commented on the allegations in a statement: “Never before in the history of our nation has this happened. The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but they have armed our justice system to punish a political opponent who just so happened to be a President of the United States and by far the leading Republican presidential nominee , has never existed. Always.
Here’s a breakdown of the barrage of legal troubles the former president is facing:
Jan. 6: The Justice Department says Trump can be sued for damages after the House Committee referred him to criminal charges
Trump may be sued by injured Capitol police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the Jan. 6, 2021 riot in the U.S. Capitol, the Justice Department said earlier this month in a federal court case testing Trump’s legal vulnerability to his speech before the riot.
The Justice Department told a federal appeals court in Washington in a complaint that it should allow the lawsuits, dismissing Trump’s argument that he was immune from the claims.
Meanwhile, in December, the Jan. 6 Committee referred Trump to the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges, including inciting a riot.
The recommended charges for Trump included four criminal statutes: obstructing an official process, false testimony, defrauding the US, and inciting a riot
In a series of high-profile hearings this year after the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claims he won, the committee argued that Trump was pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw the election results back to the states in an attempt to overturn the election results.
The Jan. 6 committee will ask the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against Donald Trump
Pence did not testify, but a number of other senior Trump officials did – including Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, former Attorney General Bill Barr and Roger Stone.
It’s unclear if more charges for Trump are on the table, or if other criminal charges will be brought for other players in that day’s drama.
Trump addressed his supporters on the morning of January 6 on the national ellipse — the area directly in front of the White House. Later that day, a mob of his supporters marched to the Capitol and broke into the building to stop the Electoral College’s certification of Biden’s victory.
The panel also cites the Senate’s 57 votes in the second impeachment trial against Trump last year, in which the House voted to indict him on “insurgency incitement.” He was acquitted by the Senate as a guilty verdict requires 60 votes.
But the panel’s recommendation to impeach Trump is likely to spark a political firestorm. Trump has already announced that he will seek another term in the White House in the 2024 election and has long complained that he faces political retaliation from rivals.
Even some Republicans say he shouldn’t be a target while running for office.
Trump has criticized the committee’s work, calling its members “political thugs.”
The documents Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump for storing government records, including some marked classified, after leaving office in January 2021.
The FBI seized 11,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida home, including about 100 marked classified, in a court-authorized search Aug. 8.
Some have been classified as top secret, the highest level of secrecy.
The department began its investigation after the National Archives, the US agency responsible for keeping government records, tried to get Trump to return missing government property and received 15 boxes of mixed classified documents.
Trump has accused the Justice Department of participating in a partisan witch hunt and claims the documents he took were part of his personal records and were released when he left office.
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump for storing government records, including some marked classified, after leaving office in January 2021
A so-called special master, senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, reviews the seized documents to determine whether they are protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege, a legal doctrine that allows a president to keep certain documents or information secret.
The Justice Department is also asking a federal appeals court to end that review and grant them access to unclassified material extracted in the search, arguing that both actions will hamper their criminal investigations.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil lawsuit alleging Trump inflated property values to mislead banks and investors
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed last month that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2021.
James accused Trump of adding billions of dollars to his wealth to meet loan conditions and get better insurance coverage.
Mar-a-Lago was valued at $739 million when it should have closed at $75 million, claims the 200-page lawsuit against the Trump Organization.
Trump withdrew his own countersuit against James in January after a judge accused him of using the courts to seek revenge.
Trump and his lawyers have been ordered by a Florida judge to pay nearly $1 million for suing Hillary Clinton and others over his claims that the 2016 election was rigged.
James seeks a permanent ban on Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and daughter Ivanka Trump from operating businesses in upstate New York and preventing them and his company from buying new homes and taking out new loans in state 5 Years.
James is also trying to get the defendants to turn over around $250 million, which she says was obtained through fraud.
After James announced the lawsuit, Trump called the action “Another Witch Hunt” in a social media post.
A lawyer for Trump called the lawsuit’s allegations “baseless.”
James said her investigation also uncovered evidence of criminal misconduct, which she forwarded to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service for investigation.
New York criminal investigation into Trump Organization’s “tax-free perks” for top executives
The Trump Organization is on trial in New York for criminal tax evasion.
Manhattan prosecutors last year accused Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp. of giving executives tax-free perks like rent-free housing, school tuition and leased luxury cars.
Its former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, also named as a defendant in the James lawsuit, has pleaded guilty and is required to testify against the company as part of his agreement with prosecutors.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has also investigated whether Trump misled lenders and others about asset valuations.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the investigation politically motivated.
E. Jean Carroll’s 1990s rape defamation case
E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he dismissed her claim that he raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s.
Trump accused her of lying to boost sales for a book.
In February, Trump tried to prevent two other women who have accused him of sexual assault from testifying in the defamation trial, which is scheduled to start on April 25.
In a letter released Sept. 20, an attorney for Carroll said she also plans to sue Trump for assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress under a new New York law that gives adult accusers a one-year window to pursue civil claims make alleged civil wrongdoing, regardless of when it occurred.
A lawyer for Trump has argued that he is protected by a federal law that immunizes government employees from defamation lawsuits. Trump was President at the time the lawsuit was filed.
The Manhattan-based 2nd US Circuit of Appeals said last month that Trump was a federal employee when he called Carroll a liar, but left open the question whether he was acting as president when he made the statement before an appeals hearing in Washington, DC. handed in court.