All You Need to Know About the Three Indictments Trump Is Facing
Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice has made the unprecedented decision to target former President Donald Trump through two separate criminal indictments.
Trump also faces a third set of state charges in New York and could be the target of a fourth indictment at any time in Georgia — where Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has convened a grand jury to investigate him for alleged election interference.
Trump is the only former U.S. president to face criminal charges after leaving office. But the charges against him are unsurprising — given that his presidency began with the FBI spying on his campaign.
Allegations his campaign colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election were unsubstantiated, but the probe set the tone for his current legal persecution.
How Trump Found Himself A Target Of Government Weaponization
Throughout the last seven years, Trump has been the target of the DOJ, House Democrats and a legacy media that loathes him. As the ultimate outsider, Trump won an election that caught the political world by surprise.
What followed his victory was four years of obstruction. He was impeached by House Democrats twice by the end of his term in office.
During the COVID pandemic, the outbreak of the virus was also used by Democrats in numerous battleground states to alter the way elections were to be administered in 2020.
Trump railed against their use of mass, unsolicited mail-in ballots before the voting began, and when what appeared to be a sure election night victory in 2020 was turned upside down by ballot dumps overnight in places such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, he fought the reported results.
Trump spent his final months in office challenging the results in a crusade that was branded “un-American” by many people who had themselves denied he had legitimately won the election four years prior.
So-called “election denying” was suddenly a danger to democracy, according to Democrats and the media apparatus that is designed to carry their water.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 protest and incursion at the U.S. Capitol, Trump found himself — for a time — isolated to his private residence in Florida, deplatformed by Big Tech and blacklisted by major TV networks. Last fall, he announced a comeback.
Trump’s Third Presidential Bid And The Threat It Poses To The Status Quo
In the aftermath of his presidency, Trump was treated as a political leper while Biden at first enjoyed positive approval ratings. By November 2022, Biden had sunk into negative territory with voters whose lives had been negatively impacted by his policies.
Trump declared his intent to mount another White House bid after the midterms. But Biden’s leadership problems coupled with credible allegations his family is corrupt led to Trump — and not Biden — in court.
If elected next year, Trump would have no more campaigning to do, and he would be free to radically shake up the federal government, which he has promised to do. Polling has purported to show his chances for re-election are strong.
With that in mind, he poses an existential threat to many of the institutions that are currently working against him. The groundwork for disqualifying him from another term began before Election Day in 2020 and ramped up shortly after he left office.
The First Indictment: “Hush Money”
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
In March 2023, Trump faced his first set of charges in New York City after a grand jury indicted him for allegedly violating a state record-keeping law.
The charges stemmed from allegations that Trump fraudulently disguised reimbursed money to his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen for payments to former adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Daniels insisted she was paid by Cohen prior to the 2016 election to keep her allegations of an affair with Trump quiet. Trump denied the affair occurred.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has accused Trump of fraud — which he has denied.
He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial in the case is scheduled for March 25, 2024.
The Second Indictment: Possessing Classified Documents
Trump is charged with 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information, six counts of obstruction and two counts of uttering false statements.
The federal prosecution of Trump began in early 2022 when the Justice Department initiated an investigation into his retention of classified documents after his presidency. In August 2022, the FBI conducted a raid at Mar-a-Lago, seizing documents with classified markings.
Jack Smith was appointed as the special counsel in November 2022 to lead the investigation.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. reviewed evidence and heard testimony, including from Trump’s legal team. The investigation culminated in a grand jury indictment on June 9.
Trump was charged with 37 felony counts, many of them under the Espionage Act, related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents. He is also charged with obstruction of justice and allegedly making false statements.
Trump pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on June 13, and his trial is scheduled for May 20, 2024.
Trump was later charged — along with an aide named Walt Nauta and a Mar-a-Lago employee named Carlos De Oliveira — for the alleged destruction of security camera footage at the resort.
The Third Indictment: Jan. 6 And Challenging The 2020 Election Results
Trump is charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, one count of conspiracy against civil rights and two counts of obstruction.
Between Election Day in 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, Trump and his advisers explored every legal avenue available to them to challenge the results of the vote — which Trump argued had been rigged.
The campaign to challenge the election essentially ended after Jan. 6 when a number of Trump’s supporters entered the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the results.
A peaceful transition of power occurred, but Democrats with a House majority weaponized their power and targeted Trump’s use of his First Amendment rights to cast doubt on the integrity of the voting.
A House select committee convened to investigate the Capitol incursion and Trump’s alleged role in it weeks after he left office. He was ultimately referred to the DOJ for prosecution.
On Aug. 2, a Washington, D.C., grand jury indicted him. No trial date has been set, but a court will likely bog Trump down during the Republican Party primary voting — as the other two cases will.
The timing of Trump’s indictments are questionable, and their respective trials are expected to interfere with his campaign.
As Axios’ Stef Kight pointed out, the Aug. 2 indictment “blocks out Biden’s bad news.”
Kight continued, “As his most-likely 2024 challenger faces a growing list of serious, criminal charges, Biden faces his own political battles over his son’s business dealings, the border and the U.S. economy.”
Trump is facing legal challenges from almost every direction as he is perhaps months away from a rematch with Biden.
More Trouble Might Be On The Horizon In Georgia
While Trump faces two federal indictments and one state indictment in New York, Willis could announce charges against Trump at any time.
A Fulton County grand jury has targeted Trump associates, such as Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
The prospect of an indictment in Georgia has loomed over Trump for more than two years as state Democrats have investigated him for alleged election interference. Willis has remained tight-lipped about the scope of the investigation, but she has indicated an indictment could come as early as this month.
Trump faces mounting legal bills and the prospect of prison during a time when his campaign should be preparing to win a primary and amass resources for a general election campaign against a historically unpopular president.
That president is the same man running a DOJ that has hit Trump with two federal indictments this summer — led by Smith — whose impartiality is as questionable as Biden’s.
Trump’s legal woes are the culmination of years worth of planning by his political enemies to keep him from four more years in office.
The timing of the indictments and Trump’s upcoming trial dates should not be viewed as a mere coincidence.
As Biden stated last November regarding a potential third Trump’s presidential campaign, “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power … if he does run. I’m making sure he — under legitimate efforts of our Constitution — does not become the next president again.”
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