Donald Trump could be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury as soon as Thursday, potentially charged with falsifying business records connected to hush money payments during his 2016 campaign to women who accused him of sexual encounters.
A vote on whether to indict the former president is expected within days; the grand jurors cancelled a Wednesday meeting but were told to be on standby for Thursday.
It’s one of several investigations that have intensified as Trump mounts his third presidential run. He has denied any allegations of wrongdoing and accuses prosecutors of engaging in a politically motivated “witch hunt” to damage his campaign.
For 40 years, Trump has navigated countless legal investigations without ever facing criminal charges. That record may soon come to an end.
An indictment in New York would mark an extraordinary turn in American history, making Trump the first former president to face a criminal charge. And it would carry tremendous weight for Trump himself, threatening his long-established ability to avoid consequences despite entanglement in a dizzying number of cases.
Indictment, says biographer Michael D’Antonio, would be a “shocking event, both because of the fact that a former president is being indicted for the first time, but also because one of the slipperiest people at the highest level of business, whose devotion to abusing the system is so well established, is being caught.”
“Throughout his life, he has done things for which he could have been investigated and potentially prosecuted and learned from those experiences that he could act with impunity,” he said.
Trump first faced legal scrutiny in the 1970s when the Department of Justice brought a racial discrimination case against his family’s real estate business.
Trump and his father fiercely fought the suit, which accused them of refusing to rent apartments to black tenants in predominantly white buildings. Testimony showed that applications filed by prospective black tenants were marked with a “C″ for “coloured.” Trump counter-sued for $100m, accusing the government of defamation.
The case ended with a settlement that opened the way for some black tenants but did not force the Trumps to explicitly acknowledge they had “failed and neglected” to comply with the Fair Housing Act.
Since then, Trump and his businesses have been the subject of thousands of civil lawsuits and numerous investigations. There have been probes into his casino and real estate dealings, allegations of bribery and improper lobbying, fraud allegations against the now-defunct Trump University and charitable Trump Foundation and a probe by the Manhattan district attorney into sales at the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium in Lower Manhattan.
Trump is a master of delay tactics, “finding ways to endlessly delay in the hopes that the investigation and litigation will go away. And he’s had remarkable success,” says CREW president Noah Bookbinder, a former federal corruption prosecutor.
“It makes accountability absolutely essential because we can’t have people in a functioning democracy operating in positions of power with total impunity where they can commit crimes and never have to face any consequences,” he said.
As president, Trump continued to face legal scrutiny. For two years, the Justice Department investigated his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. While special counsel Robert Mueller never found direct evidence of collusion, his final report did lay out evidence for obstruction.
In January, his namesake company was fined $1.6m for tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records. The company’s longtime executive, Allen Weisselberg, is currently serving jail time as punishment for dodging taxes on job perks.
Additional cases are still being pursued. In Georgia, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis has been investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the 2020 election. The foreperson of a special grand jury, which heard from dozens of witnesses. said last month that the panel had recommended that numerous people be indicted, and hinted Trump could be among them.
In Washington, Trump is under scrutiny from special counsel Jack Smith for his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
Some legal experts have questioned the wisdom of having the Manhattan case be the first brought against Trump, when more serious charges could be looming.
It involves payments made by Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who served prison time after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal. Cohen was reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as “legal expenses”.
Politically, Trump allies believe the case actually will benefit him in the short term by energising his base in a competitive Republican primary.
“The prosecutor in New York has done more to help Donald Trump get elected,” says South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham.
An indictment wouldn’t stop Trump from continuing his campaign. There is no prohibition against running while facing criminal charges – or even following conviction. Indeed, convicted felons have run for president before, including from behind bars.
“It boggles the mind to think that we have an ex-president on the eve of being indicted still the frontrunner for the Republican Party in 2024,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “You would have thought (potentially) being arrested would have been a disqualifying factor in presidential politics. But Trump constantly surprises people.”
