Trump indicted by N.Y. grand jury, first ex-president charged with crime

Trump, who is campaigning to return to the White House in 2024 and leading in most polls of Republican voters, is also the focus of criminal probes in Georgia and Washington, D.C., related to his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and his handling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and private club.

Those cases have raised serious questions about national security and the basic functions of democracy. The New York case, in contrast, stems from a hush-money plan and Trump’s alleged conduct before he became president. The indictment follows weeks of speculation about whether and when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg might take such a momentous step toward a courthouse showdown with one of the most combative politicians in modern American history.

Being charged with — or found guilty of — a crime does not disqualify Trump from running for office. Still, the indictment suggests a remarkable possibility: a soon-to-be-77-year-old running for president while simultaneously seeking to beat a conviction. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and says he did not have an affair with Daniels.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney said Thursday evening that the office had contacted Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender for arraignment “on an indictment, which remains under seal.”

Bragg and his investigative team have spent months probing whether Trump falsified business records connected to the Daniels payments in a way that could constitute a campaign-finance violation — a set of facts and allegations that some lawyers called a “zombie” case because it has lingered, seemingly lifeless but not actually dead, for years.

Trump, who has long railed against law enforcement officials, particularly when it comes to investigation of his conduct, quickly issued a statement condemning the indictment. Democrats, he charged, “have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable — indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference. Never before in our Nation’s history has this been done.”

The indictment was filed behind closed doors at the Lower Manhattan courthouse after the clerk’s office was closed for the day. It was not immediately clear whether it will be unsealed before Trump appears in court.

Trump, like any criminal defendant, is expected to be processed before his arraignment, including fingerprinting and mug shots. Security will be a concern, given that he has a significant Secret Service detail as a former president — a novel issue in a historic case. The special agent in charge of Trump’s security detail, Sean Curran, or Curran’s deputy, is likely to personally accompany Trump when he is processed.

Donald Trump was indicted. Here's what it means and what happens next.

Trump was at Mar-a-Lago Thursday afternoon when his lawyers said he had been indicted. His legal team was surprised by the precise timing, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it.

The former president has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and maintained that those investigating him were making politically motivated accusations — a posture that energizes the most loyal segments of his base, even as some more mainstream Republicans have expressed interest in finding a new party standard-bearer.

Trump vowed Thursday to rally his fellow Republicans to defeat Bragg, an elected Democrat. “And then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office,” he said.

Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, the lawyers who have been representing Trump in the Bragg case, confirmed in a statement that their client was indicted but said: “He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in Court.”

Legal experts have said that the apparent prosecution theory of the case is an untested application of state law, but that it isn’t necessarily fatal to the case. Trump’s legal team is expected to try to have the case tossed before it ever gets to trial — arguing that, among other things, there was no crime committed because even the alleged conduct by Trump does not fit the meaning or application of the law.

One person with knowledge of Trump’s political operation said advisers have been prepping for charges, and drawing up lines of attack on Bragg and key witnesses.

David Urban, a longtime adviser to Trump who is not working for him in 2024, said Trump is gearing up to fight the case. “If you’re going to indict the president, there should be a dead body laying next to him. This is far from it,” he said.

In addition to any legal challenges for prosecutors, the case against Trump will face significant political head winds. Many Republican elected officials leaped to Trump’s defense on Thursday, denouncing what they called the weaponization of the criminal justice system.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican Party, called the indictment “a blatant abuse of power from a DA focused on political vengeance instead of keeping people safe.”

Bragg’s investigation appears to have focused on $130,000 paid by former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who has said he fronted the money involved in the Daniels transactions to ensure her silence ahead of the 2016 election, and was later reimbursed by Trump. The reimbursement payments were erroneously classified as legal fees, previous investigations have found.

The porn star, the checks and the president: Trump's tawdry path to peril

Legal experts have said Bragg seems to be building a case of alleged business fraud, which is a misdemeanor but can be upgraded to a felony if the fraud is committed to further or conceal a separate crime. In this case, Bragg’s office appears to be alleging that business records were falsified to conceal a payment that amounted to an undisclosed campaign contribution to benefit Trump’s 2016 bid for president.

Trump’s lawyers and defenders have argued that he cannot be charged with such a crime because the purpose of the payment was not to help the campaign, but to protect Trump’s reputation and marriage.

Cohen, who would probably be a key witness for Bragg, served time in prison after pleading guilty in two federal criminal cases — including one that involved campaign finance violations related to Daniels and another woman who alleged an affair with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, and his credibility has been attacked by Trump’s defenders, which could undermine his strength as a witness.

Bragg’s office already has won a conviction against Trump’s family business, successfully prosecuting the Trump Organization on tax fraud and related counts at a criminal trial in New York Supreme Court late last year. In that proceeding, longtime Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg testified against the Trump family’s company under a plea agreement that called for him to serve five months in prison in exchange for his assistance at the trial. He had been facing up to 15 years in prison after dodging taxes on $1.7 million in income.

As a result of the December conviction, the Trump Organization was ordered to pay a $1.6 million fine to the state, the largest amount allowable under New York law. Trump was not charged in the case.

The district attorney’s investigation of Trump began in 2019, under Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. It resulted in a Supreme Court legal battle over access to Trump’s tax returns and associated records, which were ultimately turned over to Vance’s office.

At the start of Bragg’s tenure in 2022, he declined a push by senior prosecutors to ask a previous grand jury to indict Trump on charges that he defrauded lenders and insurance companies by lying about the true value of his properties and other assets. Bragg said at the time that his office would continue to investigate the former president, and a fresh roster of lawyers got involved in the case.

Vance had earlier considered pursuing charges against Trump related to Daniels. But his office ruled that out as a viable option and moved on to other matters, including the Trump Organization’s tax practices and asset valuations.

Federal prosecutors also declined to prosecute Trump in connection with the Daniels payments, even though they did charge Cohen.

Alemany, Dawsey and Barrett reported from Washington. Mark Berman, Carol D. Leonnig and Azi Paybarah in Washington contributed to this report.