The Trump Indictment, Annotated: Analyzing the 34 Charges

1
Here, the Manhattan district attorney’s office explains the method of the criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump. They were voted on by a grand jury made up of regular New Yorkers who heard from witnesses over the course of months.

2
This is the crime Mr. Trump is charged with 34 times in this indictment. Each count is identical and is an E felony, the lowest class of felony in New York State law.

3
One type of record that Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying relates to invoices for legal services that his fixer, Michael D. Cohen, sent to Mr. Trump’s company. But prosecutors say no legal services were performed. They say the invoices actually represented Mr. Cohen’s reimbursement from Mr. Trump for hush money Mr. Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her from telling her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump.

4
This language is crucial, because in order to charge falsifying business records as a felony in New York State, the district attorney must show that the records were falsified to conceal another crime. Though the indictment does not specify the second crime, in his public remarks and a related “statement of facts,” the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said that Mr. Trump had orchestrated a scheme to violate election laws.

5
A second type of false record Mr. Trump is accused of creating relates to the actual checks written to Mr. Cohen, some of which he signed himself while president of the United States. The checks were described in Mr. Trump’s records as payments for Mr. Cohen’s legal services, but were actually reimbursements for hush money, according to the district attorney.

6
This is the third type of false entry that Mr. Trump is accused of making. It relates to accounting records for what prosecutors say were hush-money reimbursements disguised as legal fees. The accounting records were maintained by Mr. Trump’s company while he was president.

7
Each of the 34 counts refers to a specific record Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying, and each specifies the date prosecutors say the record was created.

8
Mr. Bragg, who has been accused by Mr. Trump of bringing these charges for political reasons, lists his name as the prosecutor bringing the charges. His assistants, however, will be the ones who appear in court.

9
In this “statement of facts,” Mr. Bragg tells a more sweeping narrative than he could in the bare-bones indictment, providing background and context that elaborate on his allegations that Mr. Trump falsified records to hide a hush-money payment. That story relates to a broader scheme that Mr. Bragg says Mr. Trump led in a successful effort to win the 2016 presidential election. The document also says the participants violated election laws. The indictment does not contain such charges, but accuses Mr. Trump of false business filings to conceal other, unspecified crimes.

10
Mr. Bragg here identifies Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Mr. Cohen, as “Lawyer A.”

11
“Catch and Kill” is a phrase used in the tabloid world to describe the suppression of stories, often as a favor to sources or friends of the paper. As detailed below, at the outset of the 2016 campaign, the chairman of American Media Inc., which published The National Enquirer, agreed with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to “catch,” or purchase negative stories about the candidate, and then kill them.

12
The executive who ran The National Enquirer, unnamed here, was David Pecker, a longtime friend of Mr. Trump who testified before the grand jury.

13
This describes the first of three hush-money payments that Mr. Bragg has said were part of a larger scheme to illegally influence the election in favor of Mr. Trump. The publisher of The National Enquirer paid a former Trump doorman, Dino Sajudin, who is not named in this document, to suppress a story he wanted to sell about Mr. Trump fathering a child out of wedlock. The Enquirer later learned his story was not true, according to the document. This payment, like others mentioned by Mr. Bragg, had previously been reported in the media.

14
This text describes the second Trump-related hush-money deal of the 2016 election. The National Enquirer’s publisher paid $150,000 to a Playboy model, Karen McDougal — referred to as “Woman 1” — to suppress her story of having an affair with Mr. Trump.

15
This describes a conversation with Mr. Trump that Mr. Cohen recorded as they discussed buying the rights to Ms. McDougal’s story from The National Enquirer’s publisher. The purchase did not ultimately occur.

16
This begins the narrative about the third hush-money agreement: Mr. Cohen paying $130,000 to Ms. Daniels, described here as “Woman 2,” in exchange for her silence about a liaison she said she had with Mr. Trump.

17
Here begins the explanation of how Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the Daniels payment, which forms the basis for the false business filings charges in the indictment.

18
The document now describes how Mr. Cohen came under federal investigation in part for the payments to Ms. Daniels and Ms. McDougal, and ultimately turned against Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance charges related to the payments and was the primary witness against Mr. Trump in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation.

19
This details how, in a deal to avoid federal prosecution, The National Enquirer’s publisher, American Media Inc., admitted that it had purchased Ms. McDougal’s story to suppress it in support of Mr. Trump.