Trump Indicted in Classified Documents Case
Former President Donald J. Trump faces a host of investigations around the country, at both the state and federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts filed by prosecutors in Manhattan related to his role in what they described as a hush-money scheme to cover up a potential sex scandal in order to clear his path to the presidency in 2016. A Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.
And Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the documents case, is also examining Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat at the polls in 2020 and his role in the events that led to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Here is where notable inquiries involving the former president stand.
Manhattan Criminal Case
The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, brought the case over Mr. Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who was poised during the campaign to go public with her story of a sexual encounter with him.
Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time, paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Once he was sworn in as president, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen.
While paying hush money is not inherently criminal, Mr. Bragg accused Mr. Trump of falsifying records related to the payments and the reimbursement of Mr. Cohen, who is expected to serve as the prosecution’s star witness.
In court papers, prosecutors also cited the account of another woman, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. Ms. McDougal had tried to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump during the campaign and reached a $150,000 agreement with The National Enquirer.
Rather than publish her account, the tabloid suppressed it in cooperation with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, prosecutors say. (Mr. Trump has denied having affairs with either Ms. Daniels or Ms. McDougal.)
The case is scheduled to go to trial in March.
Georgia Criminal Inquiry
Prosecutors in Georgia recently indicated that they would announce indictments this summer in their investigation of Mr. Trump and some of his allies over their efforts to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Mr. Trump and his associates had numerous interactions with Georgia officials after the election, including a call in which he urged the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes” — the number he would have needed to overcome President Biden’s lead there.
Legal experts say that Mr. Trump and others appear to be at “substantial risk” of prosecution for violating a number Georgia statutes, including the state’s racketeering law.
A special grand jury was impaneled in May of last year in Fulton County, and it heard testimony from 75 witnesses behind closed doors over a series of months. The jurors produced a final report, but the most important elements of it — including recommendations on who should be indicted and on what charges — remain under seal.
But the forewoman, Emily Kohrs, has said that indictments were recommended against more than a dozen people, and she strongly hinted in an interview with The New York Times in February that Mr. Trump was included among those names. “You’re not going to be shocked,” she said. “It’s not rocket science.”
Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, will ultimately decide what charges to seek and then bring them before a regular grand jury. She recently indicated that she would do so during the first three weeks of August.
Jan. 6 Inquiries
A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol spent a year and a half examining the role that Mr. Trump and his allies played in his efforts to hold on to power after his electoral defeat in November 2020.
In December, the committee issued an 845-page report detailing the events that led to the attack on the Capitol that concluded that Mr. Trump and some of his associates had devised “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”
The panel also accused Mr. Trump of inciting insurrection and conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other federal crimes, and referred him and some of his allies to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.
The referrals were largely symbolic, but they sent a powerful signal that a bipartisan committee of Congress believed the former president had committed crimes.
Mr. Smith’s office has been conducting its own investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, building on months of work by other federal prosecutors in Washington who have also filed charges against nearly 1,000 people who took part in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The special counsel’s office has focused its attention on a wide array of schemes that Mr. Trump and his allies used to try to stave off defeat, among them a plan to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were won by Mr. Biden. Prosecutors under Mr. Smith have also sought information about Mr. Trump’s main fund-raising operation after the election.
The special counsel’s office has recently won important legal battles in its inquiry as judges in Washington have issued rulings forcing top Trump administration officials like former Vice President Mike Pence and the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify in front of a grand jury.
It is unclear what charges, if any, might come from the federal investigation. But prosecutors continue to pursue a variety of angles. They recently subpoenaed staff members from the Trump White House who might have been involved in firing the cybersecurity official whose agency judged the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” according to two people briefed on the matter.
New York State Civil Inquiry
In a September lawsuit, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, accused Mr. Trump of lying to lenders and insurers by fraudulently overvaluing his assets by billions of dollars.
Ms. James is seeking to bar the Trumps, including Mr. Trump’s older sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, and his older daughter, Ivanka, from running a business in New York.
She has already successfully requested that a judge appoint an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s use of its annual financial statements.
Because Ms. James’s investigation is civil, she cannot file criminal charges. She could opt to pursue settlement negotiations in hopes of obtaining a swifter financial payout. But if she were to prevail at trial, a judge could impose steep financial penalties on Mr. Trump and restrict his business operations in New York.
Ms. James’s investigators questioned Mr. Trump under oath in April, and a trial is scheduled for October.
Reporting was contributed by Jonah E. Bromwich , Rebecca Davis O’Brien , Michael Gold , Michael Rothfeld , Ed Shanahan , Richard Fausset and Ashley Wong .
Source: The New York Times
