Photo: AFP
Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury after a probe into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, becoming the first former US president to face criminal charges even as he makes another run for the White House.
The decision was first reported in the New York Times.
In a statement, Trump said he was "completely innocent."
"This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history," he said, providing no evidence.
The specific charges are not yet known and the indictment will likely be unsealed by a judge in the coming days. Trump will have to travel to Manhattan for fingerprinting and other processing at that point.
His lawyers Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina said they will "vigorously fight" the charges.
Necheles said she did not know when Trump would surrender.
Bragg's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The White House declined to comment.
The charges, arising from an investigation led by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, could reshape the 2024 presidential race. Trump previously said he would continue campaigning for the Republican Party's nomination if charged with a crime.
Trump, 76, sought re-election in 2020 but was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has falsely claimed he lost to Biden due to widespread voting fraud and has called the investigation that led to his indictment a "political witch hunt."
Bragg's office last year won the criminal conviction of the businessman-turned-politician's real estate company.
A grand jury convened by Bragg in January began hearing evidence about Trump's role in the payment to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election that he ended up winning. Daniels, a well-known adult film actress and director whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she received the money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006.
The former president's personal lawyer Michael Cohen has said Trump directed hush payments to Daniels and to a second woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also said she had a sexual relationship with him. Trump has denied having affairs with either woman.
Federal prosecutors examined the Daniels payoff in 2018, leading to a prison sentence for Cohen but no charges against Trump.
No former or sitting US president has ever faced criminal charges. Trump also faces two criminal investigations by a special counsel appointed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland and one by a local prosecutor in Georgia.
Trump, a divisive figure in US politics with support particularly among white blue-collar and conservative Christian voters, served as president from 2017 to 2021, governing as a right-wing populist. He was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, once in 2019 over his conduct regarding Ukraine and again in 2021 over the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. He was acquitted by the Senate both times.
He leads his early rivals for his party's nomination, holding the support of 43 percent of Republicans in a February Reuters/Ipsos poll, compared with 31 percent support for his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has yet to announce his candidacy. Biden is expected to seek re-election.
Trump on 18 March wrote on social media that he had expected to be arrested on 21 March and urged his supporters to protest to "take our nation back," reminiscent of his exhortations ahead of the 6 January, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Some leading Republicans ahead of the indictment accused Bragg of selective prosecution with political motivations. The Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, called it an "outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA" and announced a congressional investigation into whether federal funding was being used to support Bragg's probe and "subvert our democracy."
Three House Republican committee chairmen asked Bragg to provide them communications, documents and testimony about the investigation.
On 23 March, Bragg's office told the three chairmen that Trump had created a "false expectation" that he would be arrested. In a letter, the district attorney's general counsel said the representatives were seeking non-public information about a pending criminal investigation, which is confidential.
Trump in 2018 initially disputed knowing anything about the payment to Daniels. He later acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the payment, which he called a "simple private transaction."
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance law violations for his role in orchestrating the payments to Daniels and McDougal and was sentenced to three years in prison. He testified that Trump directed him to make the payments.
Cohen testified before the Manhattan grand jury investigating Trump on 13 March. The grand jury also heard from David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer. The tabloid publication bought the rights to McDougal's story about her alleged relationship with Trump for $US150,000 but never published it, a method known as "catch and kill" used by some media outlets to bury damaging information about a third party.
Michael Cohen appears before the grand jury in New York. Photo: AFP / Spencer Platt
Daniels has said she had a sexual encounter with Trump at a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2006 - the year after he married his current wife Melania and more than a decade before the businessman-turned-politician became president.
The US Supreme Court in 2021 rejected her bid to revive a defamation lawsuit she brought against Trump over a Twitter post in which he accused her of a "con job" after she described being threatened over publicising her account of a sexual relationship with him. Lower courts had thrown out her suit.
In the case that led to the conviction of the Trump Organisation on tax fraud charges, Bragg declined to charge Trump himself with financial crimes related to his business practices, prompting two prosecutors who worked on the probe to resign.
Among Trump's ongoing legal woes are a criminal investigation led by Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney in Georgia's Fulton County, into whether he unlawfully tried to overturn his 2020 election defeat in that state.
Special counsel Jack Smith is separately investigating Trump's handling of classified government documents after leaving office and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Contrasting reactions
Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the indictment was irresponsible, politically motivated and a sad day for the US.
Trump's former lawyer Cohen said: "Today's indictment is not the end of the chapter, it is just the beginning... Accountability really matters."
Republican senator Ted Cruz said: "The Democrat Party's hatred for Donald Trump knows no bounds. The 'substance' of this political persecution is utter garbage.
"This is completely unprecedented and is a catastrophic escalation in the weaponisation of the justice system."
However, the move was defended by Democratic representative Adam Schiff who said on Twitter that while the indictment was unprecedented, so too was "the unlawful conduct in which Trump has been engaged".
"A nation of laws must hold the rich and powerful accountable, even when they hold high office. Especially when they do. To do otherwise is not democracy," Schiff said.
- Reuters