All the charges Donald Trump faces – and what happens next
Donald Trump has been found by a New York judge to have committed fraud – the latest in an intimidating list of legal issues to beset the former president.
The former president “repeatedly” over-inflated his wealth by as much as $3.6 billion (£3 billion), Judge Arthur Engoron said on Tuesday as he ordered some of Mr Trump’s business licences in the state to be rescinded.
The state’s attorney general is seeking a $250 million judgment and a ban on Mr Trump doing business in New York.
Since leaving office, Mr Trump has been embroiled in a number of cases, both criminal and civil. Several of them will reach the courts next year as he campaigns to return to the White House in 2024.
In addition to claims that he tried to alter the election result, he faces criminal charges for allegedly paying hush money to a porn star, and mishandling White House documents.
Here are the key cases, what’s going on, and where this could all finish.
Georgia election
In the latest criminal charges against the president, Mr Trump has been charged with 13 counts relating to his alleged bid to overturn the election result in Georgia in 2020.
He has been charged with racketeering, violating an oath of office, and other crimes. Also indicted were Trump associates Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and John Eastman.
Mr Trump has always denied he acted improperly in Georgia in the aftermath of the election, as he sought to overturn the result in the state after narrowly losing the vote to Mr Biden.
In a leaked call with Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, Mr Trump pleaded with him to “find” thousands of votes that would allow him to win the crucial state.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Mr Trump is reported to have said. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
Mr Trump’s legal team has unsuccessfully argued that Fani Willis, a Georgia district attorney, should be barred from bringing charges against him and that a grand jury’s report should be thrown out.
The grand jury spent eight months interrogating some 75 witnesses and filed a lengthy report on Mr Trump’s conduct earlier this year.
Mr Trump surrendered at a Georgia jail on Thursday to be arrested in connection with the charges, after his bail was set at $200,000. Strict conditions have been attached to Mr Trump’s bail.
Now that he has been released from custody, Mr Trump will need to be arraigned at a later date. It is possible that it could be conducted virtually.
Ms Willis has proposed an October 23 trial date, although it is highly unlikely such a speedy trial would be granted.
Other 2020 election and Jan 6 charges
Aside from Georgia, Mr Trump has been charged with four criminal counts over the events that led to the riot at the US Capitol on Jan 6 2021.
In a 45-page indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith, he was accused of trying to “overturn the legitimate results” of the 2020 presidential election.
He allegedly did so by pushing officials in swing states he had lost to use “fake electors” to ignore the popular vote, and pressuring the Justice Department to open “sham” election inquiries.
Six co-conspirators are referred to in the indictment but have not been named. However Mr Giuliani appears to be the individual named as “co-conspirator number one.”
Prosecutors say the former president also tried to convince Mike Pence, the then vice-president, to reject legitimate Electoral College votes.
Mr Trump faces two counts relating to trying to obstruct an official proceeding having allegedly tried to block Congress confirming Joe Biden’s victory.
The felony charge was used against numerous rioters who stormed the Capitol.
The charge for conspiracy against rights criminalises any joint effort to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” people to stop them from enjoying their constitutional or federal rights.
Mr Trump’s campaign said the “persecutions” were “reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s”. It added: “These un-American witch-hunts will fail and President Trump will be re-elected to the White House.”
Mr Trump pleaded not guilty in a federal courthouse in Washington DC at the start of August.
Mr Smith, who the former president has labelled as “deranged”, said he would seek a “speedy trial” over the four criminal counts.
Even if Mr Trump is convicted, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination has insisted he will continue to run for the presidency.
There are no mandatory minimum sentences for any of the crimes Mr Trump is accused of.
Conspiracy to defraud the government is the least punitive of the four charges and is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Conspiracy against rights carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, while conspiracy to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding both mean up to 20 years in prison.
Classified documents
Mr Trump faces 40 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The indictment accused him of endangering national security by removing US secrets from the White House and storing them in “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower” at his Florida club.
Some were said to contain information about nuclear programmes, along with the defence and weapons capabilities of the US and foreign powers.
In July, three further charges were added after it was claimed that Mr Trump and two employees tried to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage before it could be handed over to the FBI.
A Trump spokesman has dismissed the case as “a continued desperate and flailing attempt” by the Biden administration “to harass President Trump and those around him”.
Mr Trump will go on trial on May 20 in the middle of the 2024 election campaign.
While lawyers had called for the case to be postponed indefinitely, citing the “challenges” of juggling a criminal trial and election, the date has been set for May 20 2024 in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Although a majority of state primaries will be finished by mid-May, a handful of votes will take place on May 14 and beyond.
Only two of the charges that Mr Trump faces carry a possible prison sentence of fewer than 10 years – the charges for scheming to conceal and making false statements and representations.
The 31 charges under the Espionage Act – the wilful retention of documents – carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors will have to prove that Mr Trump or his team – he is being tried alongside two co-defendants – “knowingly” mishandled materials “to impede, obstruct or influence” the investigation.
Charges for obstruction of justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record and concealing a document in a federal investigation all could mean a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
All charges are listed with a maximum fine of up to $250,000 (£198,000).
Stormy Daniels ‘hush money’
In April, Mr Trump was charged in New York with 34 counts of fraud in relation to “hush money” paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair.
The former president is said to have falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 payment.
According to the 16-page indictment, the payments aimed “to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election”.
Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former lawyer, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after admitting tax evasion and campaign finance violations in relation to paying off Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to the 34-count indictment, which he called a “political witch-hunt, trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party”.
Mr Trump will go on trial in New York on March 25 next year, in the middle of the Republican primaries.
The presidential candidate would normally expect to be travelling around the country on the campaign trail, but a judge warned him not to make any commitments for March 2024.
The multiple counts of falsifying business records carry a maximum four-year jail sentence if Mr Trump is found guilty.
Ms Daniels has downplayed the charges, however, arguing the former president does not deserve to be imprisoned.
“I don’t think that his crimes against me are worthy of incarceration,” she said on a TalkTV interview earlier this year.
Civil cases
Real estate fraud
A US judge found that Mr Trump fraudulently inflated his wealth by billions of dollars as part of a scheme to secure cheap loans.
The judgment is part of a sweeping lawsuit following a lengthy investigation by the New York attorney general into the Trump Organisation’s business affairs.
Judge Arthur Engoron found that the former president and his company deceived banks and insurers by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth.
Ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, Mr Engoron said Mr Trump’s estimates were based on the “fantasy world, not the real world”.
Mr Engoron ordered some of Mr Trump’s business licences be rescinded, making it difficult to do business in the city
A case against Ivanka Trump has since been dropped by a New York court after the statute of limitations expired.
Among the allegations were that Mr Trump claimed his Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan — a three-story penthouse replete with gold-plated fixtures — was nearly three times its actual size and valued the property at $327 million. No apartment in New York City has ever sold for close to that amount, Ms James said.
Mr Trump valued Mar-a-Lago as high as $739 million — more than 10 times a more reasonable estimate of its worth. Mr Trump’s figure for the private club and residence was based on the idea that the property could be developed for residential use, but deed terms prohibit that, Ms James said.
Ms James is also seeking $250 million that she claims the Trumps obtained fraudulently by allegedly inflating the company’s worth by “billions of dollars”.
E Jean Carroll
E Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, is seeking additional damages from Mr Trump after he called her a “whack job” a day after he was found to have sexually abused her in a civil lawsuit.
Ms Carroll claimed that Mr Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.
The civil jury rejected the rape claim but ordered the former president to pay $2 million in damages for sexual abuse.
In a televised town hall hosted by CNN the following day, Mr Trump accused her of telling a “made-up story”.
He told the audience at the event: “What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and, within minutes, you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, OK?”
Ms Carroll’s lawyers claim he “persisted in maliciously defaming Carroll yet again” and are seeking an eight-figure sum.
Ms Carroll can proceed with her defamation claim against Mr Trump after the Justice Department ruled his presidency did not shield him from liability.
In a U-turn last month, it said it no longer believes Trump could claim his comments about the right were carried out as part of his presidential duties.
Ms Carroll is seeking another $10 million from the former president over his CNN comments, which her lawyers labelled “malicious” and “defamatory”.
On Wednesday, a US judge ruled that Mr Trump was liable for making defamatory statements against Ms Carroll and her second lawsuit would be for damages only, in a defeat for the former president.
The former magazine columnist had already won $5 million from Mr Trump after he was found in May to have sexually abused and defamed her.