Donald Trump And The Law: A 'Stormy' History

From classified documents and the Stormy Daniels case, all the way to the Capitol attack - a look at the legal cases dogging the former US president.

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Mr Trump is the first former US president to face federal criminal charges.
Washington DC:

Donald Trump has been indicted over his handling of classified documents, the first former US president to face federal criminal charges.

But the matter is far from the only legal peril dogging the twice-impeached Mr Trump as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024.

Here are the key cases involving the one-term president, who turns 77 years old on Wednesday:

Classified documents

Mr Trump, in an indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith, is accused of endangering national security by holding on to top secret nuclear and defense documents after leaving the White House.

Mr Trump kept the files - which included records from the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency - unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and thwarted official efforts to retrieve them, according to the indictment.

Mr Trump is charged with 31 counts of "willful retention of national defense information," each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He also faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements and other offenses.

Stormy hush money

A New York grand jury indicted Mr Trump in March over hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Prosecutors say the money was paid prior to the 2016 election to silence Ms Daniels over claims she had a tryst with Mr Trump in 2006 - a year after he married Melania Trump.

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Late in the campaign, Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a payment of $130,000 to Daniels in exchange for her pledge of confidentiality.

That case, in which he faces 34 felony counts, is due to go to trial next March, in the middle of the Republican primary election season.

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Capitol attack 

Mr Smith, the special counsel, will also decide whether Mr Trump faces any charges stemming from the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters, who were seeking to halt the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory.

Before the attack, Mr Trump delivered a fiery speech nearby urging the crowd to "fight like hell."

Federal prosecutors have obtained convictions or guilty pleas from more than 500 people for participating in the Capitol riot.

Georgia election meddling 

Mr Trump is also being investigated for pressuring officials in the southern state of Georgia to overturn US President Biden's 2020 election victory, including a taped phone call in which he asked the then-secretary of state to "find" enough votes to reverse the result.

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The top prosecutor in Georgia's Fulton County, Fani Willis, has assembled a special grand jury that could see Mr Trump facing conspiracy charges connected to election fraud.

In unusually public remarks, the grand jury's forewoman in February said the 23-member panel had recommended indictments of multiple people, including "certainly names that you would recognize." She did not say whether Mr Trump was among them.

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Other probes

Mr Trump was found liable in a civil case last month for sexually abusing and defaming an American former magazine columnist, E. Jean Carroll, in 1996, and ordered to pay her $5 million in damages.

In New York, the state attorney general Letitia James filed a civil suit against Mr Trump and three of his children, accusing them of fraud by over-valuing assets to secure loans and then under-valuing them to minimize taxes.

James is seeking $250 million in penalties as well as banning Mr Trump and his children from serving as executives at companies in New York.

Mr Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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