Trump Indicted By Manhattan Grand Jury—Arraignment Expected Tuesday On Over 30 Charges, Reports Say

Topline

A Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump over an alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, a source with knowledge of the proceedings told Forbes, with an arraignment reportedly expected Tuesday—marking the first time in American history a former president has been criminally charged.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before his speech at the annual Conservative … [+] Political Action Conference (CPAC) at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on March 4, 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

The indictment remains under seal in Manhattan state court, and while it’s unclear what crimes the grand jury decided to charge Trump with, CNN reported that he faces over 30 business fraud-related counts.

Trump, who was at Mar-A-Lago when the indictment was announced, is expected to turn himself in for an arraignment on Tuesday, his attorney Susan Necheles told the New York Times.

Trump’s team has indicated he will surrender to authorities in New York for his arraignment, where he will briefly be under arrest at the district attorney’s office—he will likely be fingerprinted, have his mugshot taken and enter a plea before being released from custody.

The investigation into Trump—led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office—centers on a $130,000 payment his former fixer Michael Cohen made to Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign to allegedly keep her from going public about an affair she says she had with Trump years earlier, which Trump has denied.

Experts have speculated Trump could be prosecuted for falsifying business records—a misdemeanor offense—because a set of payments to reimburse Cohen for the Daniels payout were falsely classified as legal services.

Prosecutors could also elevate the charge to a felony by arguing the Daniels payment constituted a felony illegal campaign donation—though this legal theory is largely untested.

A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said prosecutors contacted Trump’s team Thursday evening to “coordinate his surrender,” adding “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”

Trump blasted the indictment as “the unthinkable” in a statement Thursday afternoon, calling it the latest step in what he described as “a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”

Key Background

The unprecedented decision to criminally charge Trump follows a years-long investigation by the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan that began during his term as president. The probe was launched in 2019, months after Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges in connection with the Daniels payments, which the Department of Justice cast as illegal contributions to Trump’s presidential bid. At the time of his guilty plea, Cohen alleged that he executed the agreement with Daniels at Trump’s direction, and has since met with the DA’s office more than a dozen times and rebranded himself from Trump loyalist to vociferous critic. But the investigation has proceeded in fits and starts since then. At one point, prosecutors broadened their probe beyond the hush money payments and looked into allegations that Trump lied about the value of his real estate assets, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg reportedly shelved that part of the investigation last year due to concerns about evidence, leading one of the lead prosecutors to resign and write a fiery tell-all book. In recent months, Bragg’s office appeared to return to the Daniels allegations, bringing witnesses before a secret grand jury and inviting Trump to testify himself—a sign the probe was coming to an end.

Chief Critic

Trump has repeatedly claimed he never had an affair with Daniels and has attacked the investigation as a “political witch hunt” by the left-leaning Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Trump’s lawyers have argued that Cohen’s lack of credibility threatens the validity of the case and that the unprecedented nature of the allegations puts the case on shaky legal footing. Trump and his team have also alleged that the typical five-year statute of limitations for felony cases in New York has expired, though experts say there is legal doctrine that allows some cases to extend beyond the deadline. More than a week before he was indicted, Trump predicted his arrest in a Truth Social post and urged his supporters to protest at the Manhattan Criminal Court. Law enforcement authorities, including the NYPD and FBI, reportedly began preparing for enhanced security protocols, but protest turnout has been lackluster.

Surprising Fact

Daniels’ alleged affair with Trump first came to light in a January 2018 Wall Street Journal story that revealed the hush money scheme, citing anonymous sources. Three months later, she went public with the alleged affair in an interview with 60 Minutes. Daniels, who was 27 at the time while Trump was 60, said she met him at a golf event outside of Lake Tahoe in 2006, a year after he married Melania Trump and several months after she had given birth to their son, Barron. When the alleged affair was made public, Trump was facing numerous allegations of inappropriate behavior toward women, including the airing of the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which he can be heard cavalierly speaking about groping women.

What We Don’t Know

Whether prosecutors will land a conviction in the case, which legal experts have said hinges on proving that Trump was directly involved in both falsifying records and arranging the payments in an effort to benefit his election prospects. Trump’s lawyers could argue that Cohen—who initially fronted the money himself—made the payments as part of his routine job duties, unconnected to Trump’s political activity and without Trump’s knowledge. The former president could also argue the hush money payments weren’t campaign-related because they were intended to prevent personal embarrassment instead of shoring up electoral victory.

What To Watch For

The outcome of several other investigations against Trump unrelated to the Daniels scheme. The former president is facing two Justice Department probes into his conduct in the weeks prior to the January 6 riot and his handling of classified documents, as well as a probe by state prosecutors in Georgia into his attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss. Meanwhile, Trump and his children are facing a civil lawsuit from the New York Attorney General alleging they illegally inflated the value of their assets to secure more favorable loans.

Tangent

The charges against Trump mark an unprecedented moment for a former president, especially as Trump ramps up his 2024 campaign for the White House. Many allies rushed to Trump’s defense before criminal charges were announced, and Republicans have ramped up their criticism of Bragg in the days leading up to the indictment, prompting counter-attacks from Democrats and Bragg’s office. A group of House Republicans sent a letter to Bragg demanding his testimony and accusing him of committing an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.” Bragg’s office responded to the testimony by claiming that Congress does not have jurisdiction over the Manhattan DA’s office, while some Democratic lawmakers accused the lawmakers of weaponizing congressional resources by attacking Bragg. The Manhattan DA received a death threat accompanied by suspicious white powder inside an envelope sent to his office last week, NBC News reported, and law enforcement has reportedly seen an increase in threatening and violent rhetoric online in the lead-up to the indictment.