Courtroom sketch by Bill Hennessy for PBS NewsHour
On March 30, 2023, a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump. The indictment, or formal charges of crimes, made Trump the first former president to face criminal charges. While Trump is the only president to officially face federal criminal charges, other recent presidents have faced investigations including impeachment proceedings.
1. Federal charges for mishandling documents
In August 2023, Donald Trump's residence and hotel, Mar-a-Lago, was searched by the FBI. The search uncovered many classified documents that were supposed to have been turned in at the end of his presidency. On Tuesday, June 13, 2023, Trump was arraigned at the federal courthouse in Miami.
2. Classified documents
In total, over 300 classified government documents have been obtained from Trump. These documents contain different classification markings, ranging all the way up to the highest classification level. When he was in office, Trump was granted access to all these classified documents, but lost access post presidency. Trump's claims were that the documents he had at his Mar-a-lago residence were declassified. This article explains more.
3. Other cases
The investigation over classified documents is not the only legal trouble Trump has faced. During his 2016 election run, Trump told his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay $130,000 to Stormy Daniels over a past affair he had with her to try and keep her from speaking about the relationship.
Trump repaid Cohen in segments and used the Trump Organization to do so. In April 2023, Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan.
In 2019, E. Jean Carroll, a journalist and author, accused Trump of sexually assaulting her back in the 1990s. Carroll then sued the former president for defamation after he accused her of lying about the allegations.
In April and May 2023, the trial took place and Trump was found liable and forced to pay Carroll $5,000,000. A second trial will take place January 2024.
In September 2022, a lawsuit was filed against Trump stating that he had committed fraud by stating that he had falsely inflated his net worth and the valuations of some of his properties in an effort to mislead banks.
The trial is expected to be in October 2023. In Georgia, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is investigating a conference call on January 2, 2021, during which it appeared Trump exerted pressure on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to alter the outcome of the state's 2020 presidential election.
Willis says that a possible criminal indictments could be expected between July and September 2023.
4. January 6 and aftermath
In the January 6 attack on the Capitol building in Washington, DC, Trump told his supporters to march there during his speech and may have had more involvement or contact with groups that organized violence that day.
Along with the investigation into classified documents, Trump may also be under investigation for his role on January 6. Learn more about that investigation here .
5. Other investigations into former presidents
Although Trump is the only former president to be indicted on federal charges, he is far from the first to be investigated while in office or after
Recently, former president Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, but never convicted. He was impeached for giving false testimony to a grand jury under oath and obstruction of justice stemming from his affair with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
In June 1972, five people were arrested after breaking into the Democratic Party’s national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. Former president Richard Nixon and his administration denied any involvement in the act.
During the hearings about the break in, the existence of tapes of conversations in the president’s office were discovered.
Though former president Nixon continued to say he had no part in the crimes, he resigned on Aug. 8, 1974, rather than face vote in House of Representatives that would have resulted in his impeachment.
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