A Grand Jury Voted to Indict Donald Trump, Making Him First Ex-President Charged With a Crime

This article was originally published by Vanity Fair.

Donald Trump is one step closer to being criminally charged, and potentially serving time in prison, after a Manhattan grand jury reportedly voted to indict him for his role in the 2016 hush money payout to porn star Stephanie Clifford a.k.a. Stormy Daniels. According to The New York Times, “An indictment will likely be announced in the coming days. By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, will have asked Mr. Trump to surrender and to face arraignment on charges that remain unknown for now.”

Trump does not yet appear to have commented on the news.

Bragg’s office began presenting evidence to a grand jury at the end of January, signaling that a charging decision was imminent. Among the witnesses who testified were former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, longtime Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway, and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen’s testimony was presumably of significant interest to prosecutors, given that he was the actual person who paid Daniels the $130,000 in October 2016 to keep her quiet, and pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the hush money deal.

Cohen has previously said he arranged the hush money payoff at Trump’s direction; he told Congress that he was reimbursed for the $130,000 while Trump was in office, with the then president personally signing checks each month. Asked why the reimbursement was spread out over approximately a year’s time instead of being taken care of in one fell swoop, Cohen said it was “in order to hide what the payment was,” and that it was meant to “look like a retainer.” And Trump, he testified under oath, “knew about everything.” Speaking to reporters after he testified before the grand jury in mid-March, Cohen said: “My position is that, at the end of the day, Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds, if in fact that’s the way that the facts play out.”

Daniels herself met with prosecutors on March 15.

While a conviction is in no way a sure thing, should he be found guilty, Trump could go to prison for up to four years. Asked earlier this month if he would drop out of the 2024 presidential race if he were to be indicted, the ex-president and current presidential candidate responded: “I wouldn’t even think about leaving,” adding that criminal charges would “probably…enhance my numbers.”

Of course, today’s news is far from the only legal issue Trump is facing. The Justice Department is currently running a pair of criminal investigations into both his handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. In January, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who has been investigating Trump and his allies’ attempt to overturn the election in Georgia, said charging decisions in that case would be coming soon.