Legal cases vs Donald Trump

Former US president Donald Trump begins day two of his civil fraud trial, lashing out at New York's attorney general before entering the courtroom where he could be barred from doing business in the state.

Trump, who is facing legal battles on multiple fronts, called Attorney General Letitia James "very corrupt" and "grossly incompetent" in his trademark combativeness, ahead of the day's proceedings. 

James is seeking $250 million in penalties and the removal of Trump and two of his sons from management of the family empire. — AFP

A New York judge rules that Donald Trump and his sons Eric and Don Jr. committed fraud by inflating the value of the real estate and financial assets of the Trump Organization for years.

The ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron is a setback for the former president ahead of a trial in the civil case due to begin on Monday and a partial victory for New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

James has accused Trump, his two eldest sons and other Trump Organization executives of lying to tax collectors, lenders and insurers for years in a scheme that routinely exaggerated the value of their properties. — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump courts evangelical Christians and women at two back-to-back Washington events -- demographics whose loyalty once seemed contradictory, but are now part and parcel of the American political fabric. -- AFP

The White House rejects "baseless" allegations of wrongdoing against US President Joe Biden after Republican lawmakers launched an impeachment inquiry against him.

While the 80-year-old Democrat remained silent when asked by reporters about the probe, his spokeswoman pushed back against the investigation by his political foes.

"They have spent all year investigating the president... and have turned up with no evidence, none, that he did anything wrong," Biden's Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters. — AFP

Media reports that former US president Donald Trump was arrested at a Georgia jail Thursday on racketeering and conspiracy charges and released on $200,000 bond after having a historic mug shot taken.

Trump, who is accused of colluding with 18 other defendants to overturn the 2020 election result in the southern state, spent less than 30 minutes inside Atlanta's Fulton County Jail before leaving in a motorcade for the airport.

Eight Republican presidential candidates face off for the first primary debate of the 2024 election cycle Wednesday -- with frontrunner Donald Trump stealing the spotlight, despite spurning the showdown.

Trump's snubbing of the two-hour Milwaukee event deprived a chasing pack of rivals, whom he leads by a large margin in polling, of the opportunity to take shots at him live on stage.

He instead gave a recorded interview with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson that was posted online minutes before the debate got underway. — AFP

All eyes are on Donald Trump as the Republican White House hopefuls prepare to do battle in the first debate of the 2024 race on Wednesday -- with the main attraction threatening not to show up.

Five months ahead of the start of primary elections to choose the party's flagbearer, the runaway frontrunner's grassroots support is as strong as ever, but numerous criminal cases have cast a pall over his comeback bid.

The 77-year-old former president, who is rarely out of the headlines, has been vocal about possibly skipping the event in the midwesten city of Milwaukee, wary of sharing the limelight with lower-polling rivals. — AFP

Prosecutors investigating Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the US state of Georgia presented evidence to a grand jury for what could be a sprawling, multi-defendant indictment.

The case would be the fourth brought against the 77-year-old Republican this year and could lead to the first televised trial of a former president -- a watershed moment in US history -- featuring charges typically used to bring down mobsters.

"There will be multiple co-defendants more likely than not, showing a pattern of unlawful conduct to overturn the election in Georgia: hacking, false statements, harassment, etc," Georgia State University political analyst Anthony Kreis says in a social media post. — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump blasts the multiple prosecutions threatening his re-election bid, complaining that court appearances would keep him off the campaign trail for much of 2024.

Speaking in New Hampshire days after being indicted for a third time in four months, Trump railed against "deranged" officials probing allegations that he illegally hoarded national security secrets, falsified business records and corruptly tried to overthrow an election.

The 77-year-old billionaire, the comfortable frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, baselessly accused President Joe Biden of ordering the investigations, which he said were brought because of his stellar polling numbers. — AFP

Donald Trump pushes back against a bid by government lawyers to restrict what he can share publicly about his historic prosecution for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"I shouldn't have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to FREE SPEECH," the former president says in a post on his Truth Social platform.

"Deranged Jack Smith and the Department of Injustice should, however, because they are illegally 'leaking' all over the place!" he adds in a reference to the special counsel who filed the case against him. — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to the new charges filed against him for allegedly mishandling top secret government documents.

The 77-year-old Trump was charged with three additional felonies in a superseding indictment handed down last week by special counsel Jack Smith.

In a written notice on Friday to the US district court in Florida handling the case, Trump pleaded not guilty to the new charges. — AFP

Donald Trump is expected to appear in court on Thursday to answer charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, a case that will cast a dark and volatile cloud over the 2024 White House race for which he remains the presumptive Republican nominee.

The arrest and arraignment of the former president will take place in a federal courthouse within sight of the US Capitol that was stormed by his supporters on January 6, 2021, in what prosecutors say was the culmination of the alleged plot.

The 77-year-old Trump is expected to enter a plea of not guilty at a hearing set to begin at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT) before magistrate judge Moxila Upadhyaya. — AFP

Donald Trump was indicted ver his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election -- the most serious legal threat yet to the former president as he campaigns to return to the White House.

It is the third criminal indictment of the 77-year-old Trump since March and charges him with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is already scheduled to go on trial in Florida in May of next year for allegedly mishandling top secret government documents. — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump says he would not end his run for the White House if convicted and sentenced in any of the criminal investigations threatening to derail his tumultuous comeback bid.

The Republican frontrunner was discussing the multiple indictments he faces as he pushes for a second term, a day after prosecutors broadened the charges against him over his handling of classified government documents.

Asked by radio host John Fredericks if being sentenced would stop his campaign, Trump quickly responded: "Not at all. There's nothing in the Constitution to say that it could." — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump faces fresh charges alleging that he attempted to obstruct the investigation into the mishandling of top-secret documents by conspiring to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Federal prosecutors published the new indictment targeting the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, who is set to go on trial in the case in May of next year.

Trump dismissed the new accusations as "nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass" him and those around him. — AFP

He has been indicted over hush money payments to a porn star and found liable in a sexual abuse lawsuit in a tumultuous start to his reelection campaign — but America's evangelicals just can't quit Donald Trump.

The 45th president of the United States — who is vying to be the 47th — has spent years mired in legal and ethical scandals, from accusations that he abused his office and tried to subvert a free-and-fair election to alleged affairs.

Yet the 77-year-old Republican remains as popular as ever on the Christian right, his appeal abundantly evident at Road to Majority, a weekend gathering of 3,000 evangelicals from the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Washington.

"Together we're warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, the globalists and the Marxists," Trump said in characteristically apocalyptic language, as he delivered the keynote address at the closing gala to rapt applause.

"That's what they are. And we will restore our Republic as one nation under God."  — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump, facing dozens of charges of mishandling classified government secrets, defended himself Monday in an unusually tough interview on conservative-leaning Fox News, saying he had been too "busy" to sort through the documents.

Trump appeared last Tuesday before a judge in Miami to be formally presented with 37 charges brought by the federal government following an FBI search of his Florida mansion last August.

The Department of Justice accuses Trump -- who is vying to win back the White House next year -- of violating the Espionage Act and other laws when he removed classified documents upon leaving office and failed to give them up to the National Archives.

The 77-year-old told Fox News host Bret Baier, in an interview broadcast Monday evening, that as he quickly left the White House in January 2021, his personal belongings were mixed in with government documents.

"In my case, I took it out pretty much in a hurry, but people packed it up and we left. And I had clothing in there, I had all sorts of personal items in there -- much much stuff."

"I have every right to have those boxes," he claimed. — AFP

Fresh off Donald Trump's 37-count indictment, several top Republicans, including White House hopefuls Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson, on Sunday criticized the ex-president's handling of classified information as rivals plot their potential paths to 2024.

The comments, including harsh criticism from former Trump defense secretary Mark Esper, came on the first round of major weekend political talk shows since Trump pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom Tuesday to mishandling some of the US government's most sensitive secrets.

Prosecutors also allege that Trump schemed to prevent federal investigators from recovering the classified material, which he took with him upon leaving the White House. — AFP

Donald Trump pleads not guilty to dozens of criminal counts for mishandling some of the US government's most sensitive secrets and scheming to prevent their return, in a historic appearance in federal court.

The former president -- and the favorite to fight next year's election for the Republicans -- gave himself up to US Marshals in Miami for a brief hearing that set up the unprecedented scenario of a White House race litigated from the courtroom as well as at the ballot box.

On the eve of his 77th birthday, Trump appeared before a magistrate judge to be formally presented with 37 charges brought by a special counsel probe that opened after an FBI raid of his Florida mansion. — AFP 

Federal prosecutors unseal a wide-ranging indictment of Donald Trump, accusing the former US president of endangering national security by holding on to top secret nuclear and defense documents after leaving the White House.

The 76-year-old Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, took hundreds of classified government documents in cardboard boxes to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the 49-page charge sheet said.

Trump kept the files -- which included records from the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency -- unsecured at Mar-a-Lago, which regularly hosted large social events, the indictment says. — AFP

Donald Trump says he has been indicted over his handling of classified documents after leaving office, the former US president's most serious legal threat yet as a firestorm of criminal investigations imperil his bid for a second White House term.

"The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax," Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social as he broke what would be bombshell news of a historic moment for the United States: the first time a sitting or former commander-in-chief has ever faced federal charges.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Justice Department regarding Trump's assertion, although some US media outlets including The New York Times cited sources saying that Trump has indeed been indicted. — AFP

A combative Donald Trump made a rare live appearance on longtime adversary CNN on Wednesday, repeating his false claims about the 2020 election, hurling insults and mocking a former magazine columnist he was found liable of sexually abusing and defaming.

Trump, during a one-hour "town hall" on the cable television network that he regularly denounced as "fake news" while in the White House, took questions on a broad range of subjects including the war in Ukraine, the debt limit, immigration and his multiple legal challenges.

"Most people understand that what happened was a rigged election," Trump said of his 2020 presidential election defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.

If reelected, he said he would pardon a "large portion" of the hundreds of Trump supporters who have been jailed for their roles in the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol. — AFP

A video of sworn testimony given by former president Donald Trump in a US rape and defamation lawsuit against him was made public Friday.

The footage, some of which was aired in court this week, shows Trump being asked about his infamous comments in the "Access Hollywood" tape leaked before the 2016 election.

Trump says during the deposition recorded in October 2022 that his comments that famous people had license to sexually assault women was "historically" true "over the last million years." — AFP

A woman tells a New York civil trial that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her on a flight in the United States in the late 1970s.

Jessica Leeds recounted the alleged attack while testifying in the writer E. Jean Carroll's rape and defamation lawsuit against the ex-president.

Trump denies all allegations of sexual assault and has never been criminally prosecuted over any such claims. — AFP

Jury selection is scheduled to start Tuesday in a civil trial pitting Donald Trump against a prominent former American columnist, who says he raped her in the 1990s.

E. Jean Carroll, 79, says Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store and then defamed her after she went public with the allegations years later.

Trump, who is facing a slew of legal woes that threaten to derail his 2024 run for a second term in the White House, denies the allegations. — AFP

Donald Trump testifies under oath for several hours in a New York civil case that accuses the ex-president and three of his children of business fraud.

The behind-closed-doors deposition came a week after Trump's historic arraignment on criminal charges in a Manhattan courtroom in a separate case.

The 76-year-old Republican is facing a slew of state, federal, and congressional probes that threaten to complicate his bid to regain the presidency in next year's White House election. — AFP

Former US president Donald Trump, having been criminally charged in New York, has pledged to "never drop out" of the 2024 race for the White House, and insisted Joe Biden is not fit to run again.

The Republican real estate magnate, who is facing 34 felony counts in New York over alleged hush money paid to an adult film actress, told Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson that nothing would prevent him from running -- even a conviction.

"I'd never drop out," he said. "It's not my thing. I wouldn't do it." — AFP

Trump on criminal charges: 'I never thought this could happen in America' — AFP

Donald Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony counts inside a packed New York courtroom, in a dramatic hearing that transfixed the nation and began the countdown to the first ever criminal trial of an American president.

After a stern glare to waiting press, Trump spent about an hour inside a Manhattan courtroom where he voluntarily surrendered to face charges over hush money payments that have already upended the 2024 White House race in which he leads the Republican field.

"Not guilty," the 76-year-old former president said in a clear voice inside the courtroom, where he sat with his shoulders up to his ears, at times looking annoyed but mostly listening cooperatively. — AFP

Donald Trump was set Tuesday to plead not guilty to criminal charges in a New York courtroom in an unprecedented case that threatens to upend the 2024 White House race.

Trump is the first sitting or former American president to be criminally indicted -- a historic development that has propelled the United States into uncharted political waters.

Amid tight security in Manhattan -- and a global media frenzy -- the 76-year-old will learn at his arraignment precisely what charges he faces over hush money paid to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election that brought him to power.

The twice-impeached Republican claims he is the victim of "political persecution" -- but is also using the court case to energize his support base and raise millions of dollars for his bid to reclaim the White House next year. — AFP

Donald Trump's legal team goes on the offensive following his historic indictment, vowing the former president would never seek a plea deal and was ready "to fight" all charges.

The 76-year-old Trump, who is hoping to recapture the White House in 2024, chimed in with attacks on the prosecutors who brought the charges against him and even the judge expected to hear the case.

"ELECTION INTERFERENCE, KANGAROO COURT!" Trump posts on his social media platform Truth Social, adding that Juan Manuel Marchal, the judge who may preside over an eventual trial, "hates me." — AFP 

A New York prosecutor confirms the indictment of former president Donald Trump, and his office says the Republican's lawyers have been contacted to "coordinate his surrender... for arraignment."

"Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected," a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says in a statement, adding that the indictment is still sealed. — AFP

Get the latest on the legal problems being faced by former US President Donald Trump.

Photo courtesy of AFP/Nicholas Kamm