Donald Trump has been indicted in the Stormy Daniels hush money case on Thursday, The New York Post reported citing sources. The Manhattan grand jury has now directed the former President into a criminal prosecution.
The jury voted to indict Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential election. He has become the first former US president to face criminal charges even as he makes another run for the President.
Trump previously said he would continue campaigning for his party’s nomination if charged with a crime. According to the New York Times report, the specific charges are not yet known and the indictment is expected be announced in the coming days. The former president will have to travel to Manhattan for fingerprinting and other processing at that point.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg’s office will likely ask Trump to surrender and face arraignment. The specific charges will be announced when he is arraigned.
Daniels claims an affair with Trump in 2006. He denies the affair but has accepted directing his then-lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay Daniels $1,30,000 for her silence.
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In a statement, Trump lashed out at Bragg, calling him a “disgrace” and accusing him of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work”.
“The Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,” he said.
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The former president faces the prospect of having his fingerprints recorded and his mugshot taken, like all defendants in criminal cases.
Currently, Trump is the clear front-runner among all declared and potential contenders for the Republican White House nomination.
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Trump also faces legal challenges over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, his attempts to overturn the 2020 result in Georgia, his retention of classified records, his business dealings, and a defamation case arising from an allegation of rape by the writer E Jean Carroll, which Trump denies.
