Donald Trump indictment: former US president's key legal woes explained
Donald Trump has been indicted in an unprecedented criminal case. From when he'll face court, to his key legal woes, here is everything you need to know.
Donald Trump has been indicted in an unprecedented criminal case accusing the former US president of trying to subvert the will of American voters through his attempts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. Here is what we know.
When will he face court?
Trump will face court on Friday morning (AEST)
What are the charges?
The indictment by a federal grand jury in Washington charges Mr Trump with four crimes, including conspiring to defraud the US, obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiring against the rights of voters for his actions that culminated in the January 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the US Capitol.
- Conspiracy to defraud the United States “by using dishonesty, fraud and deceit to obstruct the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” according to the special counsel’s office.
- Conspiracy to impede the Jan. 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified.
- Conspiracy against the right to vote and to have that vote counted.
- Obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct and impede, the certification of the electoral vote.
Trump's key legal cases: 2020 election interference
Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled four new charges against Trump related to efforts to overturn the election results.
Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of an official proceeding -- the January 6, 2021 meeting of a joint session of Congress held to certify Biden’s election victory.
He is also charged with conspiracy to deny Americans the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.
“Each of these conspiracies... targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment said.
The indictment mentions six co-conspirators but none are identified - Trump, currently the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is the only named defendant.
Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress met to certify the presidential election results -- an assault that left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured.
Before the Capitol attack, Trump delivered a fiery speech urging the crowd to “fight like hell".
Classified documents
Trump, in another indictment brought by Smith, is accused of endangering national security by holding onto top secret nuclear and defence documents after leaving the White House.
Trump kept the files - which included records from the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency -- unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and thwarted official efforts to retrieve them, according to the indictment.
Trump was initially charged with 31 counts of “wilful retention of national defence information,” each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. An additional count was added last week.
He also faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements and other offences.
Last week, a superseding indictment also added an extra count under the Espionage Act related to Trump allegedly retaining a classified document “concerning military activity in a foreign country.” The federal judge in the case has set a trial date of May 20, 2024, at the height of the presidential campaign.
Stormy Daniels hush money
A New York grand jury indicted Trump in March over hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Prosecutors say the money was paid prior to the 2016 election to silence Daniels over claims she had a tryst with Trump in 2006 - a year after he married Melania Trump.
Late in the campaign, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a payment of $130,000 to Daniels in exchange for her pledge of confidentiality.
That case, in which he faces 34 felony counts, is due to go to trial next March, in the middle of the Republican primary election season.
Georgia election meddling
Trump is also being investigated in the southern state of Georgia for pressuring officials there to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory - incidents that were also referred to in Tuesday’s federal indictment.
Evidence includes a taped phone call in which he asked Georgia’s then-secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse the result.
The top prosecutor in Georgia’s Fulton County, Fani Willis, has assembled a special grand jury that could see Trump facing conspiracy charges connected to election fraud.
In unusually public remarks, the grand jury’s forewoman in February said the 23-member panel had recommended indictments of multiple people, including “certainly names that you would recognize.” She did not say whether Trump was among them.
Other probes
Trump was found liable recently in a civil case for sexually abusing and defaming an American former magazine columnist, E. Jean Carroll, in 1996, and ordered to pay her $5 million in damages.
In New York, the state attorney general Letitia James has filed a civil suit against Trump and three of his children, accusing them of fraud by over-valuing assets to secure loans and then under-valuing them to minimise taxes.
James is seeking $US250 million in penalties as well as banning Trump and his children from serving as executives at companies in New York.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing.
Have any other former US presidents been charged with a crime?
No. Trump is the first former US president to be charged with a crime, marking an explosive and unpredictable development in the 2024 White House race as Trump seeks again to clinch the Republican nomination.
Trump is not the first to be impeached, however. There have now been four presidential impeachments: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Mr Trump in 2019 and 2021, making him the only president to be impeached twice.
With AFP
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