(Reuters) – Here is a list of legal troubles facing former U.S. President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Trump, 77, denies any wrongdoing.
JAN. 6 AND THE U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is investigating Trump’s role in actions surrounding his loss in the 2020 presidential election that culminated in Trump’s supporters’ deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump said his attorneys met on Thursday with U.S. Justice Department officials, in a sign charges could come soon.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that the Department of Justice had not told his attorneys when action was likely.
Officials have testified that during his final months in office, Trump pressured them with false voter fraud claims.
The federal probe is also examining a plot to submit phony slates of electors to block U.S. lawmakers from certifying Biden’s victory
ILLEGAL RETENTION OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
Trump pleaded not guilty in federal court on June 13 in Miami to charges he unlawfully kept classified national security documents when he left office in 2021 and lied to officials who sought to recover them.
The trial is scheduled for May 20, 2024.
Smith accuses Trump of risking national secrets by taking thousands of sensitive papers with him when he left the White House in January 2021 and storing them in a haphazard manner at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate and his New Jersey golf club, according to the indictment.
Photos included in the indictment show boxes of documents stored on a ballroom stage, in a bathroom and strewn across a storage-room floor.
Those records included information about the secretive U.S. nuclear program and potential vulnerabilities in the event of an attack, the indictment said.
Trump faces charges that include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes unauthorized possession of defense information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
On Thursday, prosecutors unveiled a new indictment, which charges Trump, his co-defendant and valet Walt Nauta, and a third Trump employee, Carlos De Oliveira, with attempting to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago after they were sent a grand jury subpoena for the videos in June 2022.
Prosecutors allege De Oliveira told another employee that “the boss” wanted a server containing security footage to be deleted.
GEORGIA ELECTION-TAMPERING CRIMINAL PROBE
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating whether Trump and others tried illegally to overturn his defeat in that state’s 2020 presidential vote. A charging decision in the criminal case is expected by Sept. 1.
The investigation focuses in part on a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” enough votes needed to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia.
Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.
Trump could argue that his discussions were free speech protected by the U.S. Constitution.
NEW YORK ‘HUSH MONEY’ CRIMINAL CASE
A New York grand jury indicted Trump for allegedly falsifying business records in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn star before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. Prosecutors in Manhattan accuse Trump of trying to conceal a violation of election laws.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels but admitted to reimbursing Cohen for his payment to her.
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other crimes and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 during Trump’s presidency.
The trial is scheduled for March 25, 2024.
SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEFAMATION CIVIL LAWSUITS
Trump is appealing a $5 million verdict by a Manhattan federal jury that found him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and then defaming her by lying about it in 2022.
Carroll is seeking at least $10 million more in a separate defamation lawsuit she amended after Trump blasted the verdict on CNN and on his social media platform. He has denied meeting Carroll and accused her of making up her allegations.
A trial in that case is scheduled for Jan. 15, 2024.
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, last September for alleged fraud by him and his family.
James, a Democrat, accuses Trump of lying from 2011 to 2021 about asset values, including for his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan, as well as his own net worth, to obtain better terms from lenders and insurers.
The lawsuit seeks at least $250 million in damages from Trump, his adult sons Donald Jr and Eric, the Trump Organization and others, and to stop the Trumps from running businesses in New York.
A trial is scheduled for Oct. 2. James said in June that her case may have to be adjourned in light of the federal documents case.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Luc Cohen, Karen Freifeld, Susan Heavey, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Stempel and Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Howard Goller and Daniel Wallis)
