Where each Trump case stands
From allegations of plotting to overturn a lost election to illegally stowing classified documents at his Florida estate, former President Donald Trump faces four criminal indictments in four different cities as he vies to reclaim the White House. Here’s a look at each case:
Classified documents case
Pictured: Boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Special counsel Jack Smith has been leading two federal probes related to Trump, both of which have resulted in charges against the former president.
The first charges to result from those investigations came in June when Trump was indicted for mishandling top secret documents at his Florida estate. The indictment alleges that Trump repeatedly enlisted aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showed off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map.
A superseding indictment issued in July added charges accusing Trump of asking for surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago estate to be deleted after FBI and Justice Department investigators visited in June 2022 to collect classified documents he took with him after leaving the White House. The new indictment also charges him with illegally holding onto a document he’s alleged to have shown off to visitors in New Jersey.
In all, Trump faces 40 felony charges in the classified documents case. The most serious charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on May 7 canceled the May 20 trial date in the case, postponing it indefinitely. She struck a paragraph from the indictment June 10 but denied a defense request to dismiss some of the charges. The paragraph concerns allegations that Trump, in 2021 and while no longer president, showed a classified map of a foreign country to a representative of his political action committee while discussing a military operation that he said was not going well. Defense lawyers said the paragraph was prejudicial because it was not connected to any crime charged in the indictment
Walt Nauta, a valet for Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Trump’s Florida estate, have also been charged in the case with scheming to conceal surveillance footage from federal investigators and lying about it.
Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira have pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in April to throw out the charges they face. The judge did not immediately rule.
Election interference
Pictured: Supporters of former President Donald Trump protest Jan. 6, 2023, outside of the Supreme Court on the second anniversary of the riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s second case against Trump was unveiled in August when the former president was indicted in Washington on felony charges for working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The four-count indictment includes charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding: the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. It says that Trump repeatedly told supporters and others that he had won the election, despite knowing that was false, and describes how he tried to persuade state officials, then-Vice President Mike Pence and finally Congress to overturn the legitimate results.
After a weekslong campaign of lies about the election results, prosecutors allege, Trump sought to exploit the violence at the Capitol by pointing to it as a reason to further delay the counting of votes that sealed his defeat.
In their charging documents, prosecutors referenced a half-dozen unindicted co-conspirators, including lawyers inside and outside of government who they said had worked with Trump to undo the election results and advanced legally dubious schemes to enlist slates of fake electors in battleground states won by Biden.
The Trump campaign called the charges “fake” and asked why it took two and a half years to bring them. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case had been set for trial on March 4 in federal court in Washington. But that date was canceled amid an appeal by Trump on the legally untested question of whether a former president is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House.
The Supreme Court injected fresh uncertainty into the trial date, saying Wednesday that it would hear arguments in late April. That leaves it unclear whether a trial can be completed before the November election.
Hush-money scheme
Pictured: Former President Donald Trump speaks before entering the courtroom Feb. 15, 2024, at Manhattan criminal court, where he faces state charges stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump became the first former U.S. president in history to face criminal charges when he was indicted in New York in March on state charges stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
Originally set to proceed to trial March 25, Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day delay starting March 15 until April as he sought answers about a last-minute evidence dump that the former president's lawyers said hampered their ability to prepare their defense. The trial kicked off with jury selection April 15. A full jury was seated April 18.
Trump has already pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Each count is punishable by up to four years in prison, though it’s not clear if a judge would impose any prison time if Trump were convicted.
The counts are linked to a series of checks that were written to his lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for his role in paying off porn actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, not long after Melania Trump gave birth to son Barron. Those payments were recorded in various internal company documents as being for a legal retainer that prosecutors say didn’t exist.
Opening statements provided a clear roadmap of how prosecutors will try to make the case that Trump broke the law, and how the defense plans to fight the charges on multiple fronts.
Lawyers presented dueling narratives as jurors got their first glimpse into the prosecution. Still to come are weeks of what's likely to be dramatic and embarrassing testimony about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's personal life as he simultaneously campaigns to return to the White House in November.
Georgia election indictment
Pictured: People watch as the motorcade with former President Donald Trump travels to the Fulton County Jail Aug. 24, 2023, in Atlanta.
Trump is charged alongside 18 other people — including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law by scheming to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss.
The indictment, handed up in August, accuses Trump or his allies of suggesting Georgia’s Republican secretary of state could “find” enough votes for him to win the battleground state; of harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; an, attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of Electoral College electors favorable to Trump.
In the months since, several of the defendants, including lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, have pleaded guilty.
An appeals court on June 5, 2024, halted the case while it reviews the lower court judge's ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case.
The Georgia Court of Appeals' order prevents Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee from moving forward with pretrial motions as he had planned while the appeal is pending. While it was already unlikely that the case would go to trial before the November general election, when Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee for president, this makes that even more certain.
The appeals court docketed the appeals filed by Trump and eight others and said that “if oral argument is requested and granted” it is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 4. The court will then have until mid-March to rule, and the losing side will be able to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Trump and eight other defendants had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, arguing that a romantic relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the state Court of Appeals.
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade formally withdrew March 15, 2024, after a judge ruled he had to leave or Willis couldn't continue to pursue the charges. His resignation allows Willis to remain on the most sprawling of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
Arizona election indictment
Pictured: Former New York Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani speaks Dec. 15, 2023, outside the federal courthouse in Washington. Guiliani, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, was among those indicted April 24, 2024, in an Arizona election interference case.
An Arizona grand jury on April 24, 2024, indicted former President Donald Trump 's chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and 16 others for their efforts to use so-called fake electors to try to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won Arizona in 2020, including the former state party chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers. They're charged with nine counts each of conspiracy, fraud and forgery. The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the charges.
Trump, who is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator, has argued that he can’t be prosecuted for acts he committed while serving as president. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments on his bid to avoid federal prosecution over his efforts to reverse his loss.
With the indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election. Heading into a likely November rematch with Biden, Trump continues to spread lies about the last election that are echoed by many of his supporters.
Descriptions of other unnamed defendants point to Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations; John Eastman, a lawyer who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election; and Christina Bobb, a lawyer who worked with Giuliani. Eastman and Bobb did not respond to text messages seeking comment, nor did a lawyer who is representing Roman in a case in Georgia.
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump as the winner.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to de-certify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”
Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 Republicans participated in the certificate signing.
The Arizona charges come after a string of indictments against fake electors in other states.
The Republicans facing charges are Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair from 2019 until early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now a candidate in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, past president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.
Civil cases
Pictured: Former U.S. President Donald Trump, with lawyers Christopher Kise and Alina Habba, attends the closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on Jan. 11, 2024, in the Manhattan borough of New York.
Beyond the criminal cases, Trump has also been the subject of a civil proceeding in New York City. The state's attorney general, Letitia James, argued that Trump and his companies engaged in a yearslong scheme to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated his wealth.
A judge has ordered Trump and his companies to pay $355 million as a penalty in the case. Trump won’t have to pay out the money immediately as an appeals process plays out, but the verdict still is a stunning setback for the former president.
New York state lawyers and an attorney for Trump settled their differences in April over a $175 million bond that Trump posted to block a large civil fraud judgment while he pursues appeals.
The agreement cut short a potential court hearing in Manhattan that was to feature witnesses.
The bond stops the state from potentially seizing Trump’s assets to satisfy the more than $454 million that he owes after losing a court case brought by the Democratic attorney general. She had alleged that Trump, along with his company and key executives, defrauded bankers and insurers by lying about his wealth.
If he’s ultimately forced to pay, the magnitude of the penalty, on top of earlier judgments, could dramatically diminish his financial resources. And it undermines the image of a successful businessman that he’s carefully tailored to power his unlikely rise from a reality television star to a onetime — and perhaps future — president.
That ruling comes on top of the $83.3 million Trump was ordered to pay to E. Jean Carroll in January for his continued social media attacks against the longtime advice columnist over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store. He was already the subject of a $5 million sexual assault and defamation verdict last year from another jury in the case.
High-profile Tulsa, Okla., attorney Clark Brewster was in New York this week with his client Stormy Daniels during the historic criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Three hundred miles apart, President Joe Biden and likely Republican challenger Donald Trump walked along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas Thursday, in dueling trips underscoring how important immigration has become for the 2024 election.
Federal prosecutors pressed a federal judge Friday to schedule a trial for this summer in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, while defense lawyers sought to put it off until after the election.
Donald Trump has won Missouri's Republican caucuses, one of three events Saturday that will award delegates for the GOP presidential nomination.
A poll finds that a growing share of U.S. adults doubt that 81-year-old President Joe Biden has the memory and acuity for the job, turning his coming State of the Union address into something of a real-time audition for a second term.
Former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty to perjury in deal that doesn't require cooperation
Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of Donald Trump's company, pleaded guilty Monday to lying under oath during his testimony in the ex-president's fraud case. His plea deal doesn't require that he testify at Trump's hush-money criminal trial.
Donald Trump secured a $91.6 million bond sufficient to cover the money he owes to writer E. Jean Carroll in a defamation lawsuit while he appeals the jury’s verdict, the former president’s lawyer told a court on Friday.
President Joe Biden attended the annual Gridiron Club and Foundation Dinner this weekend, the first time during his presidency.
Trump's lawyers say it is impossible for him to post bond covering $454 million civil fraud judgment
The former president's lawyers wrote in a court filing that “obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount” of the judgment “is not possible under the circumstances presented.”
Former President Donald Trump on Monday said Jews who vote for Democrats "hate Israel" and hate "their religion," igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
The move comes as his fundraising lags well behind President Joe Biden and national Democrats.
A New York court has agreed to hold off collection former President Donald Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.
The judge earlier had scolded the former president’s lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial after a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date.
As Donald Trump’s social media company begins trading publicly, would-be investors might ask themselves if the stock is too pricey and potentially too volatile.
A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from making public statements about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Throughout his life in business and politics, Trump's provocations have earned him near limitless free media attention.
Manhattan court must find a dozen jurors to hear first-ever criminal case against a former president
A dozen Manhattan residents are soon to become the first Americans ever to sit in judgment of a former president charged with a crime. Jury selection is set to start Monday in former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial.
The first criminal trial of any former U.S. president began as Donald Trump vies to reclaim the White House and ended without a single juror being seated and some two-thirds dismissed.
The seating of the full jury is a seminal moment in the historic case against Donald Trump, setting the stage for a trial amid the heat of the campaign.
Lawyers spent days quizzing dozens of New Yorkers to choose the panel that has vowed to put their personal views aside and impartially judge the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Opening statements in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial lay out the explosive allegations at the heart as the former president’s defense team insists he is innocent.
Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani are among 11 Republicans indicted on criminal charges as Arizona becomes the fourth state to bring charges against “fake electors.”
The National Enquirer’s David Pecker paid out thousands to shield Donald Trump. But when it came to seamy claims from porn star Stormy Daniels, he put his foot down.
The National Enquirer was the go-to American tabloid for many years. Donald Trump helped change that
Testimony by former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker during former President Trump's hush money trial has been shocking even for people who bring a healthy degree of skepticism whenever they read the supermarket tabloid.
Rooting for Donald Trump to fail has rarely been this profitable. Just ask a group of mostly amateur Wall Street investors who collectively made tens of millions of dollars over the last month by betting that the stock price of his social media business will keep dropping.
Donald Trump’s defense team tried to poke holes in potentially crucial testimony for prosecutors as the first criminal trial of a former American president wrapped up its first week.
The collision of so many cases within a five-day span underscores the challenges Trump will face as he campaigns again for the White House.
Testimony turns tense as Donald Trump’s criminal trial marks its 10th day, with an explosive recording and porn actor and Playboy model Stormy Daniel’s lawyer on the stand.
Donald Trump told Republican donors at his Florida resort this weekend that President Joe Biden is running what Trump says is a “Gestapo administration.” It's the latest example of the former president using the language of Nazi Germany in his campaign rhetoric.
Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday at Donald Trump's hush money trial, describing for jurors a sexual encounter the porn actor says she had in 2006.
Judge denies Trump request for mistrial in hush money case after Stormy Daniels’ combative testimony
Porn actress Stormy Daniels sparred with Donald Trump’s defense attorney in a testy exchange over an alleged sexual encounter, though Trump’s hush money case doesn’t rise or fall on Daniels’ account.
Porn actor Stormy Daniels' testimony about her time with Trump was by far the most awaited moment of the trial.
This frustrates a minority of conservative evangelicals who see Trump as an unrepentant poser who uses the Bible as a photo prop.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers in Donald Trump’s hush money trial wanted to score final points with the jury before it starts deliberating the fate of the former president.
Judge nixes bid to restrict Trump statements that could endanger officers in classified records case
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in her order that prosecutors didn’t give defense lawyers enough time to discuss the request before it was filed Friday evening.
Within minutes of the verdict against Donald Trump, Republicans found common ground in attacking the judge, the jury and even President Joe Biden.