This is the third time Trump's been indicted. Here's what to know about each case
From CNN's Dan Berman
Former President Donald Trump sits with his attorneys during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on April 4. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts stemming from hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Andrew Kelly/Pool/Getty Images/FILE
It’s been eight years since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower and more than two years since the January 6, 2021, insurrection — but the legal drama surrounding former Donald Trump has never been more intense.
The former president has now been indicted three times this year. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election. He pleaded not guilty in June to dozens of federal counts related to the special counsel investigation into mishandling of classified documents.
In New York, a hush money payment to an adult film star has resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme – the first time in American history that a current or former president was criminally charged.
Here's what to know about each case:
2020 election and January 6: US Justice Department
Special counsel Jack Smith investigated the period after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol.
A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four criminal counts Tuesday in the investigation: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The special counsel’s office sought testimony from a number of key White House insiders, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Aspects of the Justice Department’s probe include the use of so-called fake electors from states that Trump falsely claimed he had won, such as Georgia and Arizona. Trump had fought to keep former advisers from testifying about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down investigators.
Trump has been summoned to appear before a magistrate judge in Washington, DC, federal court on Thursday.
Mar-a-Lago documents: Did Trump mishandle classified material?
Smith is also overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s resort.
Trump was initially indicted on, and has pleaded not guilty to, 37 federal charges related to the investigation of documents that were allegedly mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after Trump left office. Last week, Smith charged Trump with three additional counts in a superseding indictment.
The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.
Trump was also caught on tape in a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed holding secret documents he did not declassify.
Hush-money payments: Trump pleads not guilty to criminal charges
Trump has been charged in Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The former president pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal illegal conduct connected to his 2016 presidential campaign.
The $130,000 payment was paid by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to Daniels to remain quiet about an alleged affair between Daniels and Trump years earlier.
Meanwhile in Georgia, Fulton County, District Attorney Fani Willis oversaw a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia. Willis, a Democrat, is considering bringing conspiracy and racketeering charges. Willis is expected to present her case to a grand jury this month.
Read about other investigations, lawsuits and controversies Trump faces here.
25 min ago
DC law enforcement monitoring for potential threats ahead of Trump's court appearance
From CNN's Holmes Lybrand
Law enforcement officials involved in the preparation for Donald Trump’s court appearance in Washington, DC, tell CNN they are monitoring for potential threats, protests and online chatter – as well as coordinating with one another on security plans for the former president's hearing.
DC’s Metropolitan Police Department will be leading security in the district while US Secret Service oversees the protection of the former president and the US Marshals Service runs security inside the courthouse.
A court appearance in DC would mark a notable moment for the former president. The US Capitol, which rioters stormed and overwhelmed in the wake of Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election, is situated a few blocks from the federal courthouse where Trump will appear and where hundreds of January 6 defendants have been convicted.
Trump's summons, issued by the court Tuesday along with the approval of his indictment, sets his initial appearance at 4 p.m. ET Thursday in the DC District Court before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya.
The Capitol Police Protective Services Bureau is monitoring for potential threats, especially those against members of Congress, as well as any online discussions of organizing protests near the Capitol in the lead-up to Trump’s court hearing.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said they have been working with law enforcement partners for the past few weeks to prepare in case Trump was indicted.
“We’re prepared for tomorrow,” Manger said.
According to law enforcement sources, agencies will establish a Joint Information Center for federal and local law enforcement to coordinate security in the district on Thursday.
Officers for the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service have been patrolling the area outside the courthouse this week — along with bomb-sniffing dogs — and have established a security perimeter around the building.
25 min ago
The district judge assigned to preside over Trump's criminal case is no stranger to January 6 litigation
From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz and Marshall Cohen
District Judge Tanya Chutkan From the Administrative Office of the US Courts
District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who's assigned to preside over former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington, DC, has repeatedly spoken out in very strong terms against the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and disrupt the transfer of power.
In November 2021, Chutkan forcefully rejected Trump’s attempts to block the House select committee investigating January 6 from accessing more than 700 pages of records from his White House.
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling.
Chutkan has been outspoken about the riot at several sentencing hearings – calling the violence an assault on American democracy and warning of future danger from political violence – and has repeatedly gone over what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.
At a December 2021 sentencing hearing, she looked ahead to the 2024 election, saying that “every day we are hearing about reports of anti-democratic factions, people plotting potential violence in 2024."
“It has to be made clear that trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, assaulting law enforcement, is going to be met with certain punishment,” she said.
Chutkan has even tacitly referenced Trump during criminal sentencings, saying to one rioter that he “did not go to the United States Capitol out of any love for our country. … He went for one man.”
At a sentencing hearing on October 4, 2021, she acknowledged the nationwide attention on the Capitol riot cases.
"The country is watching to see what the consequences are for something that has not ever happened in the country before,” she said, adding that the January 6 rioters “soiled and defaced the halls of the Capitol and showed their contempt for the rule of law."
At that same hearing, she also rejected comparisons between January 6 and the 2020 protests against racial inequality.
"To compare the actions of people around the country protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and downplays the very real danger that the crowd on January 6 posed to our democracy,” she said.
Federal prosecutors said in charging documents that Trump “was determined to remain in power” after losing the election and that he and six unindicted co-conspirators orchestrated a plot to reverse the results leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. You can read the annotated indictment here.
Former President Donald Trump sits with his attorneys during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on April 4. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts stemming from hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Andrew Kelly/Pool/Getty Images/FILE
It’s been eight years since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower and more than two years since the January 6, 2021, insurrection — but the legal drama surrounding former Donald Trump has never been more intense.
The former president has now been indicted three times this year. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election. He pleaded not guilty in June to dozens of federal counts related to the special counsel investigation into mishandling of classified documents.
In New York, a hush money payment to an adult film star has resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme – the first time in American history that a current or former president was criminally charged.
Here's what to know about each case:
2020 election and January 6: US Justice Department
Special counsel Jack Smith investigated the period after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol.
A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four criminal counts Tuesday in the investigation: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The special counsel’s office sought testimony from a number of key White House insiders, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Aspects of the Justice Department’s probe include the use of so-called fake electors from states that Trump falsely claimed he had won, such as Georgia and Arizona. Trump had fought to keep former advisers from testifying about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down investigators.
Trump has been summoned to appear before a magistrate judge in Washington, DC, federal court on Thursday.
Mar-a-Lago documents: Did Trump mishandle classified material?
Smith is also overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s resort.
Trump was initially indicted on, and has pleaded not guilty to, 37 federal charges related to the investigation of documents that were allegedly mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after Trump left office. Last week, Smith charged Trump with three additional counts in a superseding indictment.
The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.
Trump was also caught on tape in a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed holding secret documents he did not declassify.
Hush-money payments: Trump pleads not guilty to criminal charges
Trump has been charged in Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.
The former president pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal illegal conduct connected to his 2016 presidential campaign.
The $130,000 payment was paid by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to Daniels to remain quiet about an alleged affair between Daniels and Trump years earlier.
Meanwhile in Georgia, Fulton County, District Attorney Fani Willis oversaw a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia. Willis, a Democrat, is considering bringing conspiracy and racketeering charges. Willis is expected to present her case to a grand jury this month.
Read about other investigations, lawsuits and controversies Trump faces here.
Law enforcement officials involved in the preparation for Donald Trump’s court appearance in Washington, DC, tell CNN they are monitoring for potential threats, protests and online chatter – as well as coordinating with one another on security plans for the former president's hearing.
DC’s Metropolitan Police Department will be leading security in the district while US Secret Service oversees the protection of the former president and the US Marshals Service runs security inside the courthouse.
A court appearance in DC would mark a notable moment for the former president. The US Capitol, which rioters stormed and overwhelmed in the wake of Trump’s alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election, is situated a few blocks from the federal courthouse where Trump will appear and where hundreds of January 6 defendants have been convicted.
Trump's summons, issued by the court Tuesday along with the approval of his indictment, sets his initial appearance at 4 p.m. ET Thursday in the DC District Court before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya.
The Capitol Police Protective Services Bureau is monitoring for potential threats, especially those against members of Congress, as well as any online discussions of organizing protests near the Capitol in the lead-up to Trump’s court hearing.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said they have been working with law enforcement partners for the past few weeks to prepare in case Trump was indicted.
“We’re prepared for tomorrow,” Manger said.
According to law enforcement sources, agencies will establish a Joint Information Center for federal and local law enforcement to coordinate security in the district on Thursday.
Officers for the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service have been patrolling the area outside the courthouse this week — along with bomb-sniffing dogs — and have established a security perimeter around the building.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan From the Administrative Office of the US Courts
District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who's assigned to preside over former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington, DC, has repeatedly spoken out in very strong terms against the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and disrupt the transfer of power.
In November 2021, Chutkan forcefully rejected Trump’s attempts to block the House select committee investigating January 6 from accessing more than 700 pages of records from his White House.
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling.
Chutkan has been outspoken about the riot at several sentencing hearings – calling the violence an assault on American democracy and warning of future danger from political violence – and has repeatedly gone over what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.
At a December 2021 sentencing hearing, she looked ahead to the 2024 election, saying that “every day we are hearing about reports of anti-democratic factions, people plotting potential violence in 2024."
“It has to be made clear that trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, assaulting law enforcement, is going to be met with certain punishment,” she said.
Chutkan has even tacitly referenced Trump during criminal sentencings, saying to one rioter that he “did not go to the United States Capitol out of any love for our country. … He went for one man.”
At a sentencing hearing on October 4, 2021, she acknowledged the nationwide attention on the Capitol riot cases.
"The country is watching to see what the consequences are for something that has not ever happened in the country before,” she said, adding that the January 6 rioters “soiled and defaced the halls of the Capitol and showed their contempt for the rule of law."
At that same hearing, she also rejected comparisons between January 6 and the 2020 protests against racial inequality.
"To compare the actions of people around the country protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and downplays the very real danger that the crowd on January 6 posed to our democracy,” she said.
