Donald Trump indicted over 2016 election payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels

A Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict Donald Trump on criminal charges, The New York Times reported, citing four sources. Hours later, the prosecutor's office officially confirmed the information.

Prosecutors said they had contacted the former president's lawyers to agree on a time to detain the politician, which his defense team said could happen as early as Tuesday. Trump is expected to be detained, photographed and fingerprinted before a judge decides on a restraining order. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida , where Trump is based, said the state would not respond to an extradition request if it was sent by New York prosecutors.

The text of the indictment will be published within a few days by decision of the district attorney. It is known that the former US president is charged with a serious article - the charge concerns a payment of $130,000 for silence that porn actress Stormy Daniels received from Trump's lawyers before the 2016 elections. The politician himself denies both his connection with Daniels and his relation to the payments she received.

Trump called the prosecution political and said that “the Democrats have done the unthinkable by charging an innocent man with a blatant attempt to influence the election.” CNN, citing two sources familiar with the case, writes that the case against Trump includes more than thirty counts of fraud.

In November 2022, Trump announced that he would run for president in the fall of 2024. Several other investigations into his possible crimes are in the early stages.

• Stormy Daniels claims she had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump in 2006. Daniels also claims that in 2011, after she told her story to In Touch Weekly, a man approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot and told her to “leave Trump alone.”
• Information that Trump's representatives may have paid Daniels to remain silent ahead of the 2016 presidential election was published in The Wall Street Journal in 2018. According to the publication, after receiving the money, the actress agreed not to make public statements about her relationship with the politician.
• Donald Trump has become the first former US president in history to be charged with a criminal offense.