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Former US president Donald Trump has been indicted in four different investigations: two by Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith, one by the state of New York and one by the state of Georgia.
The first federal case concerned Trump's handling of classified documents and the second his alleged attempt to remain in power after losing the 2020 presidential election. The New York case centres around alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. And in Georgia, Trump and 18 others have been charged with trying to reverse the results of the 2020 election.
He has also been sued - along with his adult sons and their company - in a civil action by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who accuses them of fraudulently inflating Trump's net worth by billions of dollars.
Bizarre recent headlines around Donald Trump and other notable Republicans suggest US politics is spinning out of control, but there is reason to hope. House Speaker Mike Johnson getting aid for Ukraine passed suggests there are limits to the extremism in the Republican Party and sanity can still prevail.
The former president, who looks set to win the party nomination for another White House run, can be expected to bring the US more in alignment with Putin’s Russia, with help from the likes of senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz.
As the dust settles on the US House speakership battle, it is clear that American democracy and values matter less and less to Trump’s Republicans. Don’t be fooled by their constant anti-China fury. This invective needs to be at full blast to deflect attention from the party’s illiberal agenda.
- Jurors heard audio clips of Cohen saying the case ‘fills me with delight’ and that he felt ‘giddy with hope and laughter’ imagining Trump and his family in jail
- Republican lawmakers from the far-right Freedom Caucus attended the trial and echoed the ex-US president’s complaints about the case against him
Republican Trump replied he was ready to ‘rumble’, after being challenged by the Democratic incumbent.
As Donald Trump faces a historic criminal trial, senior Republicans are beating a path to his New York courtroom to hammer home the narrative of a witch hunt and launch proxy attacks on witnesses he is barred from targeting.
The former fixer’s own insult’s about his ex-boss – ‘Dictator douchebag’, ‘Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain’ – were used to paint him as a disgruntled turncoat.
The former adult film star was ‘paralysed with fear’ before giving testimony on her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
Donald Trump’s one-time fixer and the star prosecution witness at the former president’s criminal trial testified how the then-Republican candidate directed him to pay a porn actress to bury revelations of an alleged tryst.
The star witness, who was the ex-US president’s former lawyer, had spoken on social media while wearing a T-shirt depicting Trump behind bars.
The ex-US president’s lawyer asked her about different accounts she had given of the incident, seeking to undermine the porn star’s credibility as a witness in the hush money trial.
The decision comes a day after a Florida judge postponed the classified documents trial indefinitely, as the list of stalled cases against the ex-US president grows.
The decision greatly reduces the chances that the ex-US president will face a jury in either of two federal cases against him before the November election.
The porn star at the heart of Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial testified – in sometimes explicit detail – about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the former president in a hotel penthouse suite.
Former US president Donald Trump has sharpened his allegation that his Democratic successor has weaponised the US justice system against him, comparing Joe Biden’s tactics to those of Hitler’s secret police.
She also described how her boss was upset about the ‘Access Hollywood’ recording in which he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals.
Multiple reporters from outlets have published stories noting that Donald Trump appeared to doze off during his first criminal trial.
Speaking at Trump’s hush money trial, lawyer Keith Davidson testified about his concern that he may have helped the businessman win the White House.
Though barred from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his hush money case, the ex-US president is free to criticise Judge Merchan.
The US president’s team had previously been non-committal about his willingness to take part in the election tradition against his White House challenger.
The comments come a day after witness David Pecker testified that Trump never mentioned worrying what his wife thought about his alleged affairs.
The National Enquirer’s David Pecker says Trump’s lawyer pressed him to pay Stormy Daniels, but the publisher did not want to be involved with a porn star.
Such a delay would be significant because of the broad expectation that, should the ex-US president reclaim the White House, he would order the case dropped.
David Pecker testified that the National Enquirer paid for stories of Trump’s sexual misbehaviour but never published them, a practice known as ‘catch and kill’.
New York prosecutors portrayed US$130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels as a criminal effort to deceive voters when Trump was facing other accusations of crude sexual behaviour.
Maxwell Azzarello was seen throwing pamphlets opposite the courthouse before dousing himself in an unspecified liquid.
The ex-US president, who had earlier complained the trial would take him off the campaign trail for too long, now says it is being rushed.
Lawyers on both sides sifted through scores of potential panellists in a search for New Yorkers who can be unbiased – and physically able to attend Donald Trump’s historic trial.
The ex-US president was cautioned at one point, when his muttering was audible to one juror who was being questioned over social media posts.
Donald Trump is being investigated over his role in hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Jury selection expected to resume on Tuesday.
Donald Trump goes to court Monday as the first US ex-president ever to be criminally prosecuted, a seismic moment as the presumptive Republican nominee campaigns to re-take the White House.
Trump called his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels ‘two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly!’ on his Truth Social platform.
