Donald Trump indictment: former US president becomes first to face criminal charges – latest updates

The indictment of Donald Trump has profound implications for the Republican race for the nomination for next year’s presidential election. As Jill Colvin writes for Associated Press, it is likely to force his potential rivals into the awkward position of having to defend him – or risk the wrath of Trump’s support base.

Polls show Trump remains the undisputed frontrunner for the Republican nomination, and his standing has not faltered, even amid widespread reporting on the expected charges.

But while the sight of Trump’s involvement with the criminal justice system might galvanise his own supporters, and bring in a raft of small dollar donations, the turmoil could threaten Republican standing in the very swing-state suburbs that have abandoned the party in three successive elections, eroding its grip on the White House, Congress and key governorships.

There is little chance a criminal trial will help Trump in a general election, particularly with independents, who have grown tired of his constant chaos. That has provided an opening for alternatives like Ron DeSantis, who are expected to paint themselves as champions of the former president’s policies – but without all his legal baggage.

It should be noted that an indictment, or even a conviction, would not bar Trump from running for president or serving as the Republican nominee.

Several US media outlets are focused this morning on the fact that the indictment of former president Donald Trump comes after decades of investigations into his business dealings by state and federal authorities. As Stephen Collinson put it for CNN:

The move was especially stunning given Trump’s long record of impunity, which has seen him constantly stretch the limits of the law and the conventions of accepted behaviour with his uproarious personal, business and political careers. Suddenly, Trump’s decades of evading accountability will end. The former president will have to start answering for his conduct.

The perception of this extraordinary case will turn on two questions fundamental to the credibility of American justice: Are all citizens – even the most powerful, like former presidents and White House candidates – considered equal under the law? Or is Trump being singled out because of who he is?

Marc Fisher in the Washington Post, provided this context, writing:

50 years after federal officials first accused Trump and his father of violating laws that barred racial discrimination in apartment rentals, the former president has been indicted. The indictment in the Daniels case comes amid an Atlanta-area investigation into Trump’s role in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, and a special counsel’s federal investigations into Trump’s actions leading up to the 6 January riot at the Capitol, as well as his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Already, Trump’s statements about the Daniels case have followed a pattern he set in 1973, when federal prosecutors accused Trump and his father, Fred, a prominent New York City apartment developer, of turning away Black people who wanted to rent from them. In that case, Trump first denied the allegation, then said he didn’t know his actions were illegal, and then, through his lawyer, accused the government of conducting a bogus “Gestapo-like investigation.”

This time, Trump initially said he’d never had any sexual relationship with Daniels or that, as he told friends privately, Daniels was not his type. Then, he said he didn’t know Daniels had been paid $130,000 to remain silent about their alleged relationship, which he denies existed. And then he said that perhaps he had known about the payment, but that he never ordered his attorney, Michael Cohen, to make it.

Peter Baker last night in the New York Times tried to put into words just how unprecedented the unfolding events are, writing:

So many unthinkable firsts have occurred since Donald Trump was elected to the White House in 2016, so many inviolable lines have been crossed, so many unimaginable events have shocked the world that it is easy to lose sight of just how astonishing this particular moment really is.

For all of the focus on the tawdry details of the case or its novel legal theory or its political impact, the larger story is of a country heading down a road it has never traveled before, one fraught with profound consequences for the health of the world’s oldest democracy. For more than two centuries, presidents have been held on a pedestal, even the ones swathed in scandal, declared immune from prosecution while in office and, effectively, even afterward.

No longer. That taboo has been broken. A new precedent has been set. Will it tear the country apart, as some feared about putting a former president on trial after Watergate? Will it be seen by many at home and abroad as victor’s justice akin to developing nations where former leaders are imprisoned by their successors? Or will it become a moment of reckoning, a sign that even someone who was once the most powerful person on the planet is not above the law?

The partisan nature of the response to Trump’s indictment can be summed up in two images. An anti-Trump banner was unfurled outside the New York criminal court building shortly after the indictment was announced, while Trump supporters gathered to protest outside Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Michael R Sisak for Associated Press has this account of how events unfolded towards the end of the day yesterday.

He reports that Donald Trump’s indictment was quietly brought to the clerk’s office at the Manhattan criminal courthouse just before closing time on Thursday.

A woman and two men in suits walked in past reporters who have been staking out the office for weeks, then turned a corner and disappeared through a door to a non-public area known as the indictment room.

Sisak states that the vibe in the room shifted, and then around the courthouse, too. The clerk’s office, normally a bustle of lawyers and paralegals seeking case files and submitting papers, people posting bail and court employees cracking jokes, grew quiet and tense.

Moments later, just before 5pm local time, when a reporter asked if there were any filings involving “People v Donald Trump” – her customary end-of-day question in recent days – a usually cheerful clerk sternly replied: “We have no information on that case. The office is closing. You have to leave.”

The reporters, from outlets including the Associated Press legal publication Law360, left the office and stood outside in the hallway, watching through glass doors as workers turned out the lights and the people who’d walked in a few minutes earlier worked in darkness inside filing the indictment.

“After visiting the clerk’s office for weeks, this was all very strange,” said Frank Runyeon, a reporter for Law360. “Very unusual and we knew something was up.”

As the people continued to work, and reporters peered in at what was going on, court officers came to the hallway and shooed the press away. That floor of the courthouse was now closed, they said.

The indictment remains under seal, its contents secret, likely until Trump is arraigned. But news of the indictment, voted on by a grand jury sitting in a court building across the street from the criminal courthouse, broke shortly afterwards.

David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, offers this analysis this morning: After indictment, Trump will play the victim – and the tactic will work for many Republicans

Florida-based Trump is now expected to surrender himself on Tuesday to the Manhattan district attorney (DA) to be fingerprinted and photographed for a mugshot – something guaranteed to delight his many opponents, appall his fans and divide the United States even more.

30 March 2023 is therefore a day for the history books. It offered an affirmation of the Magna Carta principle that no one, not even the onetime commander in chief, is above the law. The 45th president of the United States is set to stand trial and, if convicted, could find himself behind bars instead of running for re-election.

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said on the MSNBC network: “Tomorrow, in terms of American history, we will be waking up in a different country. Before tonight, presidents in this country were kings.”

But while the law is clear, the politics are murky. A criminal charge or even conviction does not prevent someone running for the White House, and Trump is currently leading in opinion polls for the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

In the pre-Trump universe, an indictment over a hush money payment to an adult film star would have been career-ending. Candidates have withdrawn from election races for much less.

But since 2016, Trump has been a political judo master, turning the weight of opponents and allegations against them to his own advantage. The bigger the alleged crime, the louder he airs grievances and the more he plays the victim – and so far the Republican party has been mostly willing to indulge him.

Read more of David Smith’s analysis here: After indictment, Trump will play the victim – and the tactic will work for many Republicans

Republican politicians were also swift to react to the news. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, called the indictment “un-American” and assailed Bragg as a “Soros-backed” Manhattan prosecutor who was “stretching the law to target a political opponent”.

He added that as governor of Florida, where Trump has lived since leaving the White House, he would not oblige an extradition request should Trump refuse to surrender voluntarily.

News networks that lean towards the Republicans were vocal in their criticism of the indictment last night.

Associated Press reports that Fox News Channel host Jesse Watters called it “totally unacceptable and a disgrace to this country”. Fox’s Sean Hannity said “This is repulsive. This is a disgusting political hit job the likes of which we have never seen in this country anymore.”

Commentator Pete Hegseth said “This is a horrible night for the republic, but politically it’s a great night for Donald Trump,” and he predicted that mugshots of the former president would be proudly displayed in college dorm rooms and on T-shirts.

Reaction to the news of Donald Trump’s indictment was swift overnight, not least from the former US president himself, as Hugo Lowell reports:

Trump, who is running again for president, reacted angrily in a lengthy statement that denounced the grand jury vote as “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history”.

He framed the indictment as part of a long litany of investigations he has faced since he “came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower” to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015. He was the first president to be impeached twice, first over his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president into announcing a criminal investigation into Joe Biden, and later for his role inciting the violence that unfolded in his name on 6 January 2021.

“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. “Never before in our Nation’s history has this been done.”

Trump ratcheted up his attacks on the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, accusing him of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work” while failing to prosecute crime in New York.

Read more from Hugo Lowell here: Reactions to Trump’s indictment run the gamut, cynical to sublime

Donald Trump has been indicted by a grand jury in New York over a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Daniels claims she had an affair with the former US president in 2006. Trump denies the affair, but has admitted directing his one-time lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence.

Here is what we know so far:

• Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s spokesperson told the media: “This evening we contacted Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan DA’s Office for arraignment on a supreme court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”

• Trump was expected to appear in court for his arraignment on Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles said. At that point he would enter a plea on the charges.

• It is unclear whether Trump will be handcuffed at his appearance but he will be fingerprinted, photographed and processed for a felony arrest. His legal team is expected to vigorously fight the charges, and a timeline for a potential trial remains unclear.

• No former US president has ever been criminally indicted. The news will shake the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in which Trump leads most polls.

• Trump attacked Bragg and US President Joe Biden in a statement released shortly after the news broke, claiming the indictment amounted to “political persecution”. “I believe this witch-hunt will backfire massively on Biden,” Trump said. “Our movement, and our party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden.”

• New York’s police have been told to all report for duty on Friday and be prepared to deal with “unusual disorder”, according to a memo seen by NBC.

I am Martin Belam in London, and I will be bringing you the latest updates and reaction as the US wakes up this morning to this unprecedented legal and political situation.