Days after surviving an assassination attempt, former President Donald Trump appeared Monday at the Republican National Convention, where later this week he will accept his third consecutive presidential nomination.
Trump served as the nation’s 45th president from 2017-2021, serving one term before losing to Joe Biden in 2020 election.
He had no political experience when he first ran for president, but he had been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he was a celebrity long before his stunning upset over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Earlier this year, Trump was found guilty on 34 charges of falsifying business records, making him the first former president in American history to be convicted of a felony. Trump had been charged with falsifying the repayment of his former lawyer Michael Cohen in order to cover up a $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about an alleged affair with Trump before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affair.
Trump is still facing two other criminal cases. The latest charges came in August 2023, when an Atlanta-based grand jury indicted Trump on state charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat in Georgia. Trump and 18 co-defendants were named in the 98-page indictment.
Earlier that month, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Trump has pleaded not guilty in both those cases and accused Democrats of targeting him politically.
Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, July 13. The gunman was killed by Secret Service agents, and authorities are still investigating the incident.
Source: www.cnn.com