For 40 years, former President Donald Trump has navigated countless legal investigations without ever facing criminal charges. That record may soon come to an end. Trump could be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury as soon as this week, potentially charged with falsifying business records connected to hush money payments during his 2016 campaign to women who accused him of sexual encounters.
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.
First, Let’s Take a Look at What Happened in the Case:
In July 2006, real estate tycoon and reality television star Donald Trump met an adult film actress, Stormy Daniels, at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
Exactly what happened next is in dispute but it appears likely to culminate this week in the first ever criminal indictment of a former president of the United States.
In her 2018 tell-all book “Full Disclosure,” Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, recounts her fateful encounter with Trump at the Nevada golf resort on the shores of Lake Tahoe.
A picture taken at the time shows them posing together at a porn studio booth where Daniels was working as a “greeter.”
Trump is wearing a red hat, yellow polo shirt and khaki pants. The voluptuous Daniels is standing next to him in a tight-fitting black top that exposes her midriff.
Daniels was 27 at the time and Trump 60. His third wife, Melania, had given birth to their son Barron about four months earlier.
In her book, Daniels said one of Trump’s bodyguards invited her to have dinner with “The Apprentice” star in his penthouse.
They proceeded to have what “may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had,” she writes in an account that also includes an unflattering description of Trump’s anatomy.
Trump has denied they ever had sex and has accused Daniels of “extortion” and a “total con job.” Daniels said she remained in touch with Trump over the next year in the hope he would get her on his reality television show but it never happened.
Hush Money Case
Fast forward to 2016 and Trump is the Republican presidential nominee. The National Enquirer, a tabloid newspaper owned by a Trump ally, discovers that Daniels is seeking bidders for her potentially politically damaging story about her relationship with Trump.
The tabloid put her in touch with Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer nicknamed “The Pitbull.”
Cohen, who has since turned against Trump, has acknowledged arranging a $130,000 “hush money” payment to Daniels in exchange for her silence about the 2006 tryst.
Daniels and Trump — under the respective pseudonyms Peggy Peterson and David Dennison — were the parties to a non-disclosure agreement prepared by Cohen that has emerged in court filings.
The payment was revealed by The Wall Street Journal in January 2018 and forms the basis for the charges Trump may be facing this week in New York.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and claims that he is the victim of a political “witch hunt” by the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, intended to derail his 2024 White House campaign.
Cohen, who has served time in prison for tax evasion and campaign finance violations, and Daniels were both interviewed by prosecutors this month in connection with the case.
An Unprecedented Historic Arrest
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, as per an Associated Press report.
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 “colored.” Trump counter-sued for $100 million, 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.
Will This Affect His Term?
Politically, Trump allies believe the case actually will benefit the former president in the short term by energizing his base in a competitive Republican primary, and would provide another boost later on if it ultimately fails to yield a conviction.
“The prosecutor in New York has done more to help Donald Trump get elected,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., echoing other GOP officials, who have also argued the probe will likely help Trump in the short term, even if it could prove damaging in a general election.
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 by his devious and inappropriate behavior that he transcends by turning it into being a victim of a witch hunt.”
Associated Press, AFP contributed to this report
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