Donald Trump was charged Tuesday with 34 counts of business fraud. He pleaded not guilty to all of them.
Trump became the first former president ever to be criminally charged last week when a Manhattan grand jury indicted him for his role in hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. He has rejected all allegations, even posting a denial on Truth Social as he was being driven to a Manhattan court for arraignment.
The charges were unsealed after his arraignment Tuesday afternoon. Trump is accused of knowingly participating in a $130,000 payment made by his then–personal attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels just days before the 2016 election to stop her from going public about a decade-old extramarital affair.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Statement of Facts refers to another 2016 hush-money payment of $150,000 to a second woman, who is assumed to be former Playboy model Karen McDougal, again to keep her quiet about an affair from 2006.
And perhaps most shocking and unexpected, it also refers to a $30,000 payment from American Media Inc., or AMI, then parent company of the National Enquirer, to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock.
Neither the indictment nor the Statement of Facts mentions Daniels or McDougal by name.
This is just the start of Trump’s legal woes. He is also under investigation for trying to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, for his role in the January 6 insurrection, and for his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
He could go on trial as soon as late April for allegedly defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, who has also accused Trump of raping her.
Read through the 16-page indictment here.
This post has been updated.
