Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations

Here's where the criminal and civil cases facing Trump stand

Former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a Farmers for Trump campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 7.
Scott Olson
/
Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a Farmers for Trump campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 7.

Updated August 1, 2023 at 6:42 PM ET

Former President Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on four counts related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding, follow a sweeping federal investigation of the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump quickly derided the charges on Truth Socialas a "fake indictment" and alleged without evidence that the Justice Department was trying to derail his 2024 campaign.

Trump is the first former president in United States history to be criminally indicted, and he has now been charged twice federally and once in a state court. He's also under investigation in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results there, and he's been embroiled in civil lawsuits out of New York.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in each of the criminal cases he's been charged and says he is not liable in the other cases. Here's where the various proceedings and investigations stand:


Criminal cases

The Mar-a-Lago classified documents case

In this photo provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, stacks of boxes can be observed in a bathroom and shower in Mar-a-Lago's Lake Room in Palm Beach, Fla.
/ U.S. Department of Justice via Getty Images
/
U.S. Department of Justice via Getty Images
In this photo provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, stacks of boxes can be observed in a bathroom and shower in Mar-a-Lago's Lake Room in Palm Beach, Fla.

Number of charges: 40

Expected trial date: May 20, 2024

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 federal chargesin June for allegedly storing dozens of classified documents at his Florida resort and then refusing to hand them over to the FBI and the National Archives.

Special counsel Jack Smith, who is also leading the investigation into the Jan. 6 charges against Trump, oversaw the probe into the documents case.

Federal prosecutors allege Trump had a direct hand in packing classified documents when he left the White House in 2021, that he then bragged about having these secret materials and pushed his own attorney to mislead federal law enforcement about what kind of documents he had in his resort.

Prosecutors told Judge Cannon they want Trump's trial to begin on Dec. 11. But on July 21, Cannon issued an order pushing the trial start date to May 20, 2024 — at the tail end of the Republican presidential primary process.

Trump's legal team will likely continue working to get the trial pushed back until after the 2024 presidential election.

Trump aide Walt Nauta has also been indicted in this case. He pleaded not guilty in early July to charges that he conspired with the former president to withhold classified documents.

On July 27, a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida charged Trump with a new count of willful retention of National Defense Information in the case, stemming from a top-secret presentation he waved at aides at his Bedminster, N.J., resort. A new defendant was also added to the indictment.

The Trump campaign responded to the new charges with a statement: "This is nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him."

The Stormy Daniels hush money case

Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, on April 16, 2018, in New York. Trump is facing criminal charges for alleged hush money payments paid to Daniels in 2016.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AFP via Getty Images
/
AFP via Getty Images
Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, on April 16, 2018, in New York. Trump is facing criminal charges for alleged hush money payments paid to Daniels in 2016.

Number of charges: 34

Expected trial date: March 25, 2024 in New York

With this case, Trump became the first former president in United States history to be criminally indicted. The grand jury voted to indict Trump in March on 34 felony counts of business record falsification.

Allegations in this case go back to before Trump was elected president. They are tied to hush money payments made before the 2016 elections to the adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, has said that she and Trump had an affairin 2006. Following the launch of Trump's campaign in 2016, Daniels offered to sell her story to gossip magazines. In October, National Enquirer executives friendly to Trump flagged this to Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

Cohen agreed to pay $130,000 to Daniels to keep her silent. Her attorney received this money less than two weeks before the election. Cohen was later reimbursed $420,000 after Trump was elected president — which Trump has admitted to doing to pay off Daniels. Trump has long maintained he never had an affair with Daniels.

This artist sketch depicts former President Donald Trump, far left, pleading not guilty as the Clerk of the Court reads the charges and asks him "How do you plea?" on April 4, 2023, in a Manhattan courtroom in New York, as his attorney Joseph Tacopina, center, watches.
Elizabeth Williams / AP
/
AP
This artist sketch depicts former President Donald Trump, far left, pleading not guilty as the Clerk of the Court reads the charges and asks him "How do you plea?" on April 4, 2023, in a Manhattan courtroom in New York, as his attorney Joseph Tacopina, center, watches.

According to court records, executives with the Trump Organization categorized the reimbursements as a "retainer" for "legal services."

One of Trump's attorneys called the decision to prosecute the former president as "political persecution." Trump himself has called District Attorney Alvin Bragg a racist for pursuing this case.

The Jan. 6 case

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
Samuel Corum / Getty Images
/
Getty Images
Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Number of charges: 4

Expected trial date: tbd

A 45-page indictment lays out the case that Trump and those around him committed crimes as the former president scrambled to try to hold onto power after losing the 2020 election. It comes after the Justice Department's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, one of the most sprawling and complex investigations in U.S. history.

Trump has publicly refused to acknowledge the results since election night, when he took the stage at his campaign headquarters and claimed that the election was being stolen through fraud. In the weeks following the election, Trump's campaign pursued dozens of lawsuits in states where Trump lost. Courts repeatedly rejected the Trump team's election fraud claims, but the he continues to claim even now that he was the rightful winner.

Leading up to Jan. 6, Trump and his allies pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 election results, and urged his supporters to "fight like hell" to stop Congress from certifying the result.

Meanwhile, Trump advisers were also pursuing a fake elector scheme, pushing Republican officials in states like Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia to put forward an alternate slate of electors even though Biden had won there.

Trump spoke with his supporters during a rally in the hours leading up to the mob taking over the U.S. Capitol. In his speech, he told the thousands present "we must stop the steal."

Six unnamed co-conspirators are also included in the indictment.

Ongoing criminal investigations

Georgia 2020 election interference

An exterior view of the Superior Court building of Fulton County on Aug. 31, 2022 in Atlanta, Ga.
Megan Varner / Getty Images
/
Getty Images
An exterior view of the Superior Court building of Fulton County on Aug. 31, 2022 in Atlanta, Ga.

In Fulton County, Ga., which is home to Atlanta, District Attorney Fani Willishas impaneled a grand jury to investigate efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn 2020 election results in the state.

The criminal investigation was started by Willis after the publication of a phone call in January 2021of Trump pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" ballots in support of Trump. This was after the former president narrowly lost the state to Joe Biden.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and still baselessly maintains there was large-scale voter fraud in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election.

Willis has suggested she'll ask the grand jury for indictments later this summer, potentially as soon as August, and has told law enforcement to prep for a major public response.

Trump is also still fighting civil lawsuits

New York AG Letitia James' suit against Trump for alleged fraud

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference on July 13, 2022 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
/
Getty Images
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference on July 13, 2022 in New York City.

Expected trial date: Oct. 2, 2023 in New York

After a three-year investigation, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization's executive team and three of his eldest children, last September.

The lawsuit claims that Trump committed fraud by inflating his net worth by billions of dollars in order to get richer.

The case against Trump's oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, has since been dropped.

James is seeking around $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump, his kids and members of his executive team from operating businesses in the state of New York.

E. Jean Carroll case

U.S. magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll departs the Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on May 9, 2023 after a jury found former President Donald Trump liable for the sexual abuse of the writer in the 1990s.
Ed Jones / AFP via Getty Images
/
AFP via Getty Images
U.S. magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll departs the Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on May 9, 2023 after a jury found former President Donald Trump liable for the sexual abuse of the writer in the 1990s.

Expected trial date: Jan. 15, 2024, in New York

In 2019, writer E. Jean Carroll first publicly came forward saying Trump had raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s when Trump was known as just a businessman. Trump responded then (and since), denying the accusation and saying that the writer had ulterior motives.

Carroll sued Trump — twice (in 2019 and later in 2022) — in large part for his alleged defamation.

The columnist filed the second lawsuit against Trump (this time for both defamation and rape) after the state of New York lifted the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual assault to file civil claims.

In May, a federal jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation in this second lawsuit. The jury in this case said he did sexually abuse the writer and defamed her when he denied her allegation.

Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages.

This week, a federal judge in New York rejected Trump's motion for a new trial.

Trump's legal team filed a counterclaim against Carroll in late June for defamation. In that suit, he claims Carroll defamed him during her appearance on CNN after the jury verdict. In that interview, she was asked about the verdict finding Trump sexually abused her, but that he didn't rape her. Carroll responded, "Oh, yes he did."

Carroll's first lawsuit filed in 2019, referred to as Carroll I in the court, was filed for Trump's early alleged defamatory statements. Following her victory in May, Carroll and her lawyers asked a court to expand the scope of the Carroll I case against Trump, seeking at least an additional $10 million in damages. That trial date is expected next year.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Jaclyn Diaz