UPDATE: On Thursday, March 30, Donald Trump was indicted for his alleged role in a cover-up of hush money to Stormy Daniels during his 2016 election campaign.
Donald Trump was informed that he may testify before a grand jury this month, which could lead to Trump’s first criminal indictment and the first for any former president, the New York Times reports.
Trump signaled to his troops to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK” in a subsequent tweet about the potential indictment and arrest, which he claimed would be taking place today.
While Trump is prone to hyperbole, to say the least, the latest criminal investigation may be the most likely to succeed against the former president.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been leading the investigation, and he joins two other Black prosecutors– NY State Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton County, GA District Attorney Fani Willis– who have investigated Trump’s activity.
Meet the high-profile attorneys and learn more about what they’ve accused Trump of doing.
Bragg– a Harlem-raised, Harvard Law-educated attorney– represented Eric Garner’s mother in seeking accountability against the police officers involved in her son’s chokehold death in 2014.
He became Manhattan’s first Black district attorney when he was elected in November 2021.
Bragg’s office has been investigating the 45th president because of Trump’s possible role in the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. As the Times reports:
“Mr. Bragg is expected to accuse [Trump] of concealing a $130,000 hush-money payment that Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s lawyer and fixer, made to Ms. Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. A conviction would be likely to hinge on prosecutors proving that Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen and falsified business records when he did so, possibly to hide an election law violation.”
An alum of Howard University School of Law, AG James began her career as a public defender.
In 2022, her office sued Trump, his three eldest children, and the Trump Organization for fraud.
The lawsuit claims that “the former president inflated his net worth by billions of dollars with the help of his children and the executives named in the filing in order to persuade banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms and to obtain other economic and tax benefits,” ESSENCE previously reported.
The civil lawsuit, filed last September in NY’s state Supreme Court, would “make Trump pay $250 million in fines, ban the family from operating any New York businesses in the future, and ban the former president and the Trump Organization from buying commercial real estate in New York for five years.”
Fulton County District Attorney Willis– who presides over the City of Atlanta and is a Howard University alum– has considered “bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia,” CNN reports.
As the outlet states, after a seven-month investigation, [i]nvestigators have a large volume of substantial evidence related to a possible conspiracy from inside and outside the state, including recordings of phone calls, emails, text messages, documents, and testimony before a special grand jury.”
Georgia notably was a key swing state that shifted to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, where he narrowly defeated Donald Trump.
