Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump over hush money to Stormy Daniels

Donald Trump is likely to ‘surrender’ and face court on Tuesday after becoming the first former president to face a criminal indictment.

Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury. Picture: AFP

The US is facing months of heightened political rancour after former president Donald Trump, a front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, was indicted by a Manhattan District Attorney for hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.

Mr Trump, who will become the first current or former US president to be charged with a crime, is expected to appear in a New York court on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), where he is likely to be handcuffed and fingerprinted, after a Manhattan grand jury voted to prosecute him for dozens of charges that will likely include falsification of business documents with the intent to breach federal election laws.

Almost a week after Mr Trump suggested on social media that he would be indicted – urging his supporters to protest - the Manhattan district attorney’s office, led by Democrat Alvin Bragg, confirmed on Thursday (Friday AEDT) that it would lay charges against the former president, who was expected to turn himself in voluntarily, in a case that has divided legal experts over its chances of success.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court. Picture; Getty Images.

“This evening we contacted Mr Trump’s attorney to co-ordinate his surrender,” a spokeswoman for Mr Bragg said following days of speculation over whether the attorney would proceed with charges his predecessor and the federal department of justice declined to press after their own investigations.

Mr Trump, 76, has denied the charges, including having had an affair with Ms Daniels, although the payments of $US130,000 to the adult film star weeks before the 2016 presidential election, via Mr Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who himself served jail time over the payments, are not in dispute.

“This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history,” Mr Trump, who was in his home in Mara-A-Lago when the news emerged, said in a statement, calling Mr Bragg “a disgrace” and himself “a completely innocent person”.

At issue is whether the payments, recorded as “legal fees” in Mr Trump’s business accounts, were in fact an election contribution in breach of federal campaign contribution caps, experts said.

The White House was yet to make any statement about Mr Trump’s case but Democrat Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Mr Trump was “subject to the same laws as every American”.

“He will be able to avail himself of the legal system and a jury, not politics, to determine his fate according to the facts and the law,” Senator Schumer said on Thursday night.

High profile Republicans, including political adversaries for the GOP presidential nomination, rallied around the former president, who still commands significant support among the party’s rank and file.

Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, whose colleagues last week ordered Mr Bragg to appear before a committee to explain himself, promised to hold Mr Bragg’s “unprecedented abuse of power to account”, arguing the Democrat lawyer had “irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election”.

Donald Trump arrives at a rally at Waco Regional Airport. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis, considered Mr Trump’s main political rival within the Republican party, said Florida would “not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue”.

“The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent,” Mr DeSantis said on social media.

Former vice-president Mike Pence, speaking on CNN on Thursday night, doubled down on his defence of his former boss, calling the indictment an “outrage”.

“It will appear for millions of Americans to be a political prosecution … an example of a two-tiered prosecution,” he added, claiming the decision “sent a terrible message about the American justice system to the world”.

Donald Trump is charged over payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels. Picture: Getty Images.

The historic first indictment of a former president comes as Mr Trump has been steadily gaining ground in opinion polls of Republican voters after announcing his third bid for the White House in November, and will complicate the political calculations of Mr Trump’s rivals and opponents.

“The Deep State will use anything at their disposal to shut down the one political movement that puts you first,” Mr Trump’s campaign said in a fundraising email to supporters soon after the indictment emerged.

The case, being conducted under New York state law, is unlikely to have any legal bearing on Mr Trump’s presidential candidacy, even if he is ultimately convicted by a jury, as the US constitution does not require candidates to have a clean legal record.

A long-term lawyer for Stormy Daniels, Clark Brewster, said his client felt vindicated. “The fact is that she feels bad that the guy has been charged,” he said.

“But on the other hand, truly, she knew what the facts were and she wants him to deal with the truth as well. So from that perspective, there‘s a degree of feeling like the system is working.”

Mr Trump remains subject of numerous other investigations, including for taking classified documents to his home in Florida, his behaviour surrounding the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill and for pressuring Georgia officials to ‘find’ extra Republican votes in the wake of his 2020 presidential election loss.

Trump supporters in Waco, Texas. Picture: AFP.

Live coverage of the Trump indictment has now finished, recap how the day unfolded below: