A Manhattan grand jury has indicted former President Donald Trump, multiple sources close to Trump confirmed to NPR.
The charges, which are likely to be made public in the coming days, make Trump the first former president in US history to be criminally charged. The indictment of the grand jury is anticipated to be unsealed in the coming days.
“We contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney this evening to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal.” “When the arraignment date is set, guidance will be provided,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Thursday evening.
The grand jury has been examining hush-money payments that Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, made in 2016 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her not going public with allegations she had an affair with Trump.
Trump has denied having had an affair with Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, although he has admitted reimbursing Cohen for money paid to her.
The former president issued an angry response to the indictment, calling it political persecution.
“This is Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history,” he wrote in the statement. “From the time I came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, and even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, the Radical Left Democrats — the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this Country — have been engaged in a Witch-Hunt to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”
With charges looming, Trump earlier this month urged his supporters to mount large protests.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to numerous federal charges, including making illegal campaign contributions in the form of buying women’s silence about their alleged relationships with Trump.
In his plea, Cohen outlined the scheme: In the final month of the 2016 presidential campaign, he paid $130,000 to silence Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Donald Trump.
Cohen obtained the funds through a home equity line of credit. He planned for Trump to reimburse him over the next year.
The $420,000 in monthly payments was described as a “retainer” payment for Cohen. Some were signed by Trump himself, from what Cohen claimed was his personal account, while others were signed by the Trump trust. Falsifying company records may be considered a felony in New York if done in furtherance of another crime, such as campaign finance violations. Cohen claimed to have addressed the checks with Trump within the White House.
The investigation began under then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in 2018 and quickly grew to become a broad probe of Trump business practices. In 2019, Vance subpoenaed Trump for eight years of tax returns. Trump fought the request all the way to the Supreme Court, twice, but on both occasions the high court sided with the DA, clearing the way for him to obtain the records in early 2021.
By the end of that year, Vance’s team was preparing an indictment against Trump based on potential misrepresentations to banks and tax authorities about property valuations over a long period of time. But that was not to be. In 2022, a new DA, Alvin Bragg Jr., was sworn in, and he quickly decided not to pursue an indictment for a massive fraud scheme.
The two lead prosecutors on the case quit. One wrote in his resignation letter, “a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong. I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest.”
Bragg insisted that he had not dropped the Trump probe.
Bragg moved forward with prosecutions in a more limited tax fraud conspiracy. He obtained convictions against Trump’s former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and two Trump corporate entities, for evading taxes by compensating Weisselberg and others with undeclared benefits like a luxury apartment and cars. Checks signed by Trump were presented at trial, but the former president was never charged.
This year, Bragg started presenting witnesses to a grand jury, including Michael Cohen. Earlier this month, Trump himself was invited to testify — seen as a final step before an indictment. The former president called it “a political Witch-Hunt trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party.”
Trump and his attorneys have consistently called the investigation “politically motivated,” and a “witch hunt.” They have referred to Bragg, who is Black, as “racist.”
What legal questions does the case involve?
Many legal experts say they think the criminal case Bragg is likely to bring could be tough to prove in court. While Cohen was convicted under federal law, New York state statutes might be an awkward fit for the alleged crimes.
According to Mark Pomerantz, a veteran prosecutor who helped lead the DA office’s investigation that began under Vance and subsequently resigned, Trump’s actions violate New York law.
“The money wasn’t for legal services,” Pomerantz told NPR’s Fresh Air last month. “That’s how the payments were documented. So the documentation of the reimbursement involved the creation of false business records, which is a crime under New York law.”
A crime like that rises to the felony level, Pomerantz added, if the action is undertaken to commit or conceal another crime.
Cohen testified to Congress in 2019 that he and Trump discussed the payments when Cohen visited the Oval Office one month into Trump’s presidency.
“He’s showing me around and pointing to various paintings,” Cohen explained. “And he says to me something like, ‘Don’t fret, Michael. Your reimbursement payments for January and February are on their way. They arrived via FedEx from New York. And that requires time to work its way through the White House system.’
“As he promised, I received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter,” Cohen said, referring to the payment that combined two monthly installments.