Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for hush payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The move comes after Trump claimed that he would be arrested on March 21 for his involvement in the case.
The New York Times reported today (March 30) that the grand jury has voted to indict Trump, marking the first time a former U.S. president has been hit with criminal charges. The paper of record cited four unnamed sources close to the matter.
The panel of citizens was previously reported to be taking a hiatus for most of April before news broke of the charges. The indictment is under seal and it remains unclear what crimes the jury has decided to charge him with.
The case dates back to the waning days of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He, with the help of his lawyer at the time Michael Cohen, allegedly misused campaign finances to pay Daniels to keep quiet about their 2006 affair. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg ramped up the criminal investigation into Trump’s financial activities in November 2022, and witnesses have testified under oath both in defense of and in opposition to the former president since then.
After Trump’s team learned that an indictment was likely coming his way, he took to his social media site, Truth Social, to rally his supporters and call on them to take matters into their own hands. “With no crime being able to be proven, and based on an old and fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors) fairytale, the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America will be arrested on [March 21],” he wrote. “Protest [and] take our nation back!”
The grand jury is on break for the time being, and a timeline for when the district attorney’s office will officially announce the charges remains unknown.
Trump raged on Truth Social after he learned that he had been indicted. “These thugs and the radical left monsters have just INDICATED [sic] the 45th President of the United States of America,” he wrote. “THIS IS AN ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE… THE USA IS NOW A THIRD WORLD NATION, A NATION IN SERIOUS DECLINE. SO SAD!” Read the post below.
Trump posts on Truth Social that he has been "INDICATED." pic.twitter.com/GORUzWHboG
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 30, 2023
Full statement here:
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) March 30, 2023