Donald Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, according to two sources familiar with the case – the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.
Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday.
The indictment has been filed under seal and will be announced in the coming days. The charges are not publicly known at this time.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has been investigating the former president in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election. Grand jury proceedings are secret, but a source familiar with the case told CNN that a witness gave about 30 minutes of testimony before it voted to indict Trump.
The decision is sure to send shockwaves across the country, pushing the American political system – which has never seen one of its ex-leaders confronted with criminal charges, let alone while running again for president – into uncharted waters.
Trump released a statement in response to the indictment claiming it was “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
“I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,” the former president said. “The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump was caught off guard by the grand jury’s decision to indict him, according to a person who spoke directly with him. While the former president was bracing for an indictment last week, he began to believe news reports that a potential indictment was weeks – or more – away.
“Is this a shock today? Hell yes,” the person said, speaking on a condition of anonymity as Trump’s team calculated its response.
Bragg’s office said it is in touch with Trump’s lawyers.
“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement Thursday. “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”
Joe Tacopina, the defense lawyer for Trump, said the former president was initially asked to turn himself in to authorities in New York on Friday, the day after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him.
But Tacopina said he was surprised by the timing of the indictment and that more time was needed, as the Secret Service that protects the former president needs to coordinate his surrender in New York.
The legal action against Trump jolts the 2024 presidential campaign into a new phase, as the former president has vowed to keep running in the face of criminal charges.
Trump has frequently called the various investigations surrounding him a “witch hunt,” attempting to sway public opinion on them by casting himself as a victim of what he’s claimed are political probes led by Democratic prosecutors. As the indictment reportedly neared, Trump urged his supporters to protest his arrest, echoing his calls to action following the 2020 election as he tried to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden.
Trump has long avoided legal consequences in his personal, professional and political lives. He has settled a number of private civil lawsuits through the years and paid his way out of disputes concerning the Trump Organization, his namesake company. As president, he was twice impeached by the Democratic-led House, but avoided conviction by the Senate.
In December, the Trump Organization was convicted on multiple charges of tax fraud, though Trump himself was not charged in that case.
Trump’s Republican allies – as well as his 2024 GOP rivals – have condemned the Manhattan district attorney’s office over the looming indictment.
“I think the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage,” former Vice President Mike Pence told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview Thursday night. “It appears to millions of Americans to be nothing more than a political prosecution that’s driven by a prosecutor who literally ran for office on a pledge to indict the former president.”
GOP rallies to Trump’s defense
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has vowed to launch an investigation into the matter, and congressional Republicans quickly rallied to Trump’s defense, attacking Bragg on Twitter and accusing the district attorney of a political witch hunt.
“Outrageous,” tweeted House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the Republican committee chairmen who has demanded Bragg testify before Congress about the Trump investigation.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, called the indictment “completely unprecedented” and said it is “a catastrophic escalation in the weaponization of the justice system.”
But at least one moderate Republican told CNN he trusted the legal system.
“I believe in the rule of law. I think we have checks and balances and I trust the system,” said Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska.
“We have a judge. We have jurors. There is appeals. So I think in the end, justice will be done. If he’s guilty it will show up. But if not, I think that will be shown too,” Bacon told CNN.
