The Investigations and Lawsuits Against Trump

With the indictment and booking of Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, on election interference charges, a fourth criminal case against the former president is now active. Trump appeared in an Atlanta jail yesterday and famously had his mug shot taken.

In June and July, Special Counsel Jack Smith had in the name of the Justice Department also brought 40 felony counts against Trump and his former assistants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira in the case of classified documents found at Trump's estate Mar-a-Lago. In early August, a second Justice Department indictment concerning Trump's conduct in relation to the January 6 Capitol riots followed. Another criminal case against Trump is pursued by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which indicted and arraigned the candidate for the Republican Party's nomination in the 2024 presidential election in March and April on 30 fraud counts in connection with a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.

The office has been investigating Trump's finances since 2019, when three House committees had initially subpoenaed Trump's banks and accounting office. In early 2023, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was already sentenced to five months in jail for tax fraud and grand larceny, while the organization was ordered to pay $1.6 million for tax crimes in New York courts. Trump lost a second court case in May when we was found liable of sexual abuse and defamation of columnist E. Jean Carroll and ordered to pay $5 million in damages. There have been repeated reports that the legal costs Trump is facing have diminished his campaign funds, while they don't seem to have hurt his polling.

As seen in information by the Just Security Litigation Tracker as well as Business Insider, there are currently also 12 civil suits (some of which are being argued jointly) against Trump or his organizations, alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act and of civil rights statutes as well as financial fraud, defamation, copyright infringement and once again Trump's role in January 6, among others. Trump is currently being sued by columnist E. Jean Carroll for repeated defamation, 12 D.C. police officers, 11 Democratic Congresspeople, the Michigan Welfare rights Organization, the New York attorney general, a group of plaintiffs pursuing a class action lawsuit and his former attorney Michael Cohen, who appealed the dismissal of his case.