Fact: More legal cases against Donald Trump
The accounting violations
34 counts of indictment against Donald Trump who are accused, among other things, of having ordered payments to people who threatened to release sensitive information about him in connection with the 2016 presidential election campaign. The trial is scheduled for March 2024.
The 2020 election and the storming of Congress
Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that Donald Trump and his advisers tried to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
A special committee of the House of Representatives has previously recommended that Trump and advisers be prosecuted for having exerted pressure on the outcome of the election. The House of Representatives investigation included an examination of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
State of Georgia
An investigation is underway into the phone call Donald Trump made to Georgia Chief Election Officer Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump wanted Republican Raffensperger to “find the 11,780 votes” needed for Trump to defeat Joe Biden in the state in the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors have already warned Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and several local Republicans that they risk formal charges.
State of New York
New York State Attorney General Letitia James has sued the former president and his Trump Organization for misleading tax officials about the value of real estate and golf courses in order to get loans and tax breaks. James is seeking $250 million in damages. A civil case will begin in October. Prosecutors in Manhattan have investigated the same suspicions, but chose not to press charges.
Allegation of rape
In a civil lawsuit, a newspaper columnist claims she was raped by Donald Trump in the mid-1990s. At the trial that ended in May, the jury concluded that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her and that he was guilty of defamation, when he claimed that the columnist’s statement was a lie made up to sell books.
Trump was ordered to pay $5 million in damages, but has said he will appeal.
January 20, 2021: Donald Trump’s last day as president. When he leaves the White House, he has boxes of documents sent to his private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The boxes contain letters, photos and newspaper clippings, but also hundreds of classified documents.
May 2021: The U.S. National Archives discovers that documents from Trump’s presidency are missing and requests that he hand over any documents he may have brought with him. The request is repeated several times.
June 2021: The National Archives threatens to turn to the Department of Justice if Trump does not comply with the call.
July 2021: Trump allegedly shows a military “attack plan” he says is “top secret” to a writer visiting his home to interview him.
August or September 2021: Trump allegedly shows a classified map linked to foreign military operations to a representative of one of his policy committees.
Image from the pretrial investigation against Donald Trump showing boxes of White House documents kept in the ballroom of the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
December 2021: Walt Nauta, co-indicted as a Trump aide, discovers that several boxes have fallen and documents are scattered across the floor of a storage room. A picture he sends to a colleague shows a document labeled “SECRET”.
January 2022: After further pressure from the National Archives, Trump hands over 15 boxes of documents. They contain 69 documents marked “secret”, 98 marked “secret” and 30 “top secret”.
February 2022: The National Archives hands over the case to the Ministry of Justice after the discovery of the many classified documents. Trump’s campaign organization, in turn, describes the return as “a small thing”.
March and April 2022: The FBI opens an investigation. Just under a month later, a grand jury begins its investigation.
August 2022: After months of trying to get Trump to hand over all the boxes of documents, the Department of Justice is granted permission to search Mar-a-Lago. When the FBI searches the property, a total of around 13,000 documents are seized, of which 102 are classified.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith holds a press conference in Washington regarding the indictment against Trump on Friday, June 9. Archive image.
June 8, 2023: A grand jury in Miami indicts Trump and Nauta. Trump himself announces the indictment on his social media platform “Truth social”, calling it “a dark day for America”. In a video message, he says he is innocent and will “prove it very, very clearly and hopefully very quickly”.
June 9, 2023: The 37-count indictment against the 45th President of the United States is released. It is about attempts to obstruct justice connected to Trump’s handling of the thousands of documents, many of them classified, that were stored in his private residence. Undertaker Walt Nauta is indicted on six counts.
June 13, 2023: Trump is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court in Miami at 3 p.m. local time.