Trump faces other significant criminal cases

Former US President Donald Trump indicted in connection with his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House in early 2021, also faces two other major criminal investigations. One is related to his defeat in the 2020 re-election; in the other, he has been charged with altering business records to hide money paid to a porn star ahead of his successful 2016 presidential campaign.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and working with a large team of prosecutors, is leading the two largest investigations.

One involves Trump’s withholding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. Trump said Thursday night that he had been indicted and ordered to face the charges in a Miami court on Tuesday.

Under US law, presidents must hand over presidential documents to the National Archives when they leave office, but Trump took some with him, many marked highly classified.

Trump voluntarily returned some of the documents after authorities repeatedly requested them. But when Justice Department officials concluded he still had more in Mar-a-Lago, they obtained a court order to search the property last August. There, FBI agents discovered more classified material.

Trump has claimed that, as a former president, he had the right to keep the documents.

Smith’s other investigation involves Trump’s effort to reverse his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the weeks after the November 2020 election, including his warning on January 6, 2021, for his supporters to head to the Capitol in the US and “fight like hell” to keep Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory.

Some 2,000 Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, looted congressional offices and clashed with police that day. Since then, about 1,000 of the rioters have been charged with criminal offenses and about half have been convicted so far. Sentences range from a few months to 18 years behind bars.

In a closer criminal investigation, a state attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, is looking into Trump’s role in trying to overturn his 11,779-vote loss to Biden in the southern state of Georgia.

In a taped conversation days before the congressional certification of Biden’s victory, Trump pleaded with Georgia state election chief Brad Raffensperger and other election officials to “find” him 11,780 votes, one more than he needed to surpass. his defeat.

“The people of Georgia are angry. The people of the country are angry,” Trump said on the call to Georgia officials. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know 8…) that you’ve recalculated.”

Smith has subpoenaed a number of former top Trump administration officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence, to testify before a grand jury about his conversations with Trump in the weeks after the election and his efforts to change the outcome of the election. elections.

Pence is among the candidates for the Republican nomination in the 2024 elections

One effort, never fully implemented in states Trump lost to Biden, was to register fake Trump-supporting electors to replace legitimate Biden-supporting ones in the Electoral College vote count.

Willis has signaled that he will decide by early August whether to bring charges against Trump or any of his aides, while Smith could also bring his election-related investigation to a head in the coming months.

In New York, Trump faces trial in March 2024 on charges of altering his real estate conglomerate’s business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to silence her about her claim of an encounter. of a night with him a decade earlier.

He has denied the alleged relationship and all other charges he faces.

In a civil investigation focusing on events related to Trump’s real estate business empire, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has accused Trump of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of his properties.

She is trying to stop Trump, along with his sons Donald Jr. and Eric and daughter Ivanka, from continuing to run a business in New York. A New York judge refused in January to dismiss James’ lawsuit and trial is scheduled for October.

In a recent civil case, Trump was ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, $5 million for sexually abusing her in a New York department store three decades ago.

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