WASHINGTON (AP) — In the first criminal case against a former president,Donald Trump has been indictedon charges involving payments made during his 2016 campaign to quash claims of two extramarital sexual encounters.
WATCH: New York grand jury indicts Trump in hush-money case, lawyer says
Prosecutors in New York investigated money paid to p*rn actor Stephanie Clifford – also known as Stormy Daniels – and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep the women from going public with claims that they had sexual encounters with him.
Trump, who’s running for the White House again in 2024, called the decision by a Manhattan grand jury to indict him “political persecution and election interference at the highest level.”
Crowds form outside Trump’s Florida country club
Hours after word of the indictment emerged, Trump supporters and opponents gathered outside his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Kathy Clark, a 75-year-old retired police officer from suburban Palm Beach County, stood along the road holding a “Trump Won” banner. She called Michael Cohen a liar and the indictment a farce.
“Look at Bill Clinton and his girls in the White House. I don’t care about Trump’s personal life — that’s between him, his wife and God,” Clark said.
READ MORE: Who is Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney overseeing case against Trump?
Across the street, Victoria Doyle, a Palm Beach County lawyer, stood alone holding a sign saying “He Lost.”
“I’m celebrating our justice system, holding somebody accountable for his crimes,” Doyle said. “This man has used and abused our system for years and continuously lied to people, manipulated people, hired countless lawyers to intimidate people.”
Trump calls it a “witch hunt”
Minutes after the indictment was announced Thursday, Trump released a lengthy statement calling it the next step in a campaign from the left “to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”
“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,” Trump’s statement said.
READ MORE: At Waco rally, Trump defends Jan. 6 insurrectionists and blasts the prosecutors investigating him
Trump accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on.”
Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said the former president is a victim “of a corrupt and distorted version of the American justice system and history. He will be vindicated.”
Many Republicans line up behind Trump
Republicans from the former president’s sons to GOP senators lashed out at the indictment. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a one-word reaction: “Outrageous.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed “the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.”
One of Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, said, without citing evidence, that Trump was innocent and “the only one standing in the way of these modern day tyrants.”
READ MORE: Are Trump’s legal troubles earning him Republican support?
Eric Trump, the former president’s son, said: “This is third-world prosecutorial misconduct.” In a text to The Associated Press, he called the indictment an opportunistic targeting of a political opponent in a campaign year.
“This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot — it would make them blush. It’s so flagrant. It’s so crazed,” Donald Trump Jr., said in a live-stream video shortly after the news broke.
“New York is being overrun by violence, children are being been shot in Time Square, homelessness is through the roof yet the only focus of the New York DA is to get Trump,” Eric Trump said.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who had served as Trump’s press secretary at the White House, said Bragg should resign.
Democrats cite the rule of law
Democrats, meanwhile, said if Trump broke the law, he should face charges like any American. Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, said in a tweet: “The indictment of a former president is unprecedented. But so too is the unlawful conduct in which Trump has been engaged.”
Schiff said: “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.”
Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman, who served as lead counsel in the first impeachment trial of Trump, said in a statement that “no person is above the law.” Goldman added that elected officials on both sides should “make unequivocally clear that there is no room for political violence or interference,” Goldman said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a former federal prosecutor, said the justice system has an obligation to pursue the facts and law wherever they lead. “Former President Trump will have the same rights as any criminal defendant and the justice system will presume him innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
Trump’s potential campaign rivals weight in
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s exploring running for the GOP nomination for president, said on Twitter that his state will not assist in an extradition request for Trump.
“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head,” he added. “It is un-American.”
READ MORE: New York’s probe of Trump’s involvement in hush-money case, explained
Asa Hutchinson, a potential 2024 Republican candidate and the former governor of Arkansas, called it “a dark day for America.” Hutchinson said it is important that Trump be presumed innocent while the case plays out.
Another possible rival to Trump, biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, said the indictment threatens to undermine public trust in our electoral system and our justice system.
Mike Pompeo, who had served in the Trump administration, sent a fundraising email to potential supporters noting the indictment.
Will Trump be extradited?
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said it wasn’t immediately clear when Trump would be arraigned.
“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal. Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” the statement said.
READ MORE: Donald Trump was just indicted. What happens next?
DeSantis said in his tweet that Florida will not assist in an extradition request for Trump.
Trum’s ex-attorney testified in this case
Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen served prison time after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations, for arranging the payouts to Stephanie Clifford, known asStormy Daniels, and another woman, Karen McDougal, and for lying to Congress. Cohen became a key witness testifying before the Manhattan grand jury earlier this month.
Cohen said Thursday that he stands by his testimony and the evidence he provided.
“Today’s indictment is not the end of this chapter but rather just the beginning. Now that the charges have been filed, it is better for the case to let the indictment speak for itself,” Cohen said in a statement.
Cohen “made the brave decision to speak truth to power and accept the consequences,” his lawyer Lanny J. Davis said in a statement. “And he has done so ever since. I am proud to have been his lawyer and his friend through this long journey on the path to justice and accountability.”
Stormy Daniels pops bubbly
The p*rn star at the center of the case took to Twitter to thank her supporters.
“I have so many messages coming in that I can’t respond … also don’t want to spill my champagne,” Stormy Daniels tweeted.
She didn’t waste an opportunity to make some merchandise sales.
“#Teamstormy merch/autograph orders are pouring in, too! Thank you for that as well but allow a few extra days for shipment,” she said.
Trump uses indictment to raise cash
Like Stormy Daniels, Trump didn’t let the moment pass without trying to make some money off it.
WATCH: New poll highlights sharp divide between Trump’s base and other voters
Moments after media outlets began to report the indictment, Trump’s campaign was out with a fundraising missive calling for donations ahead of a Friday deadline when first-quarter figures are made public. He said Democrats will be watching to see if the “witch hunt out of Manhattan weakened our movement.”
Trump supporters get riled up online
News of the indictment lit up message boards, websites and social media platforms popular with Trump supporters. Some discounted it as fake, while others noted the indictment came just before the start of Holy Week and compared Trump to a persecuted Christ.
Scattered among the comments were calls for Trump supporters to rise up in protest.
Still others speculated that Trump’s indictment would galvanize Republicans ahead of the 2024 election and serve as a precedent allowing for future prosecutions of Democrats.
Will Trump try to turn a mugshot into a tool?
Former President Donald Trump is expected to go through the same process as anyone turning him or herself in on criminal charges, including fingerprinting and a mug shot.
Recent history offers examples of political figures who tried to turn arrest photos into a tool, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
EXPLAINER: 7 things to know about Trump’s indictment in New York so far
The New York Police Department doesn’t publicly release mug shots, though some have leaked in the past. It’s unclear whether Trump would try to have the picture released himself, for political or other reasons.
But his presidential campaign and other political groups quickly used word of his indictment in fundraising messages. The National Republican Congressional Committee titled an email sent to supporters Friday: “Trump IN HANDCUFFS!?”
Biden administration stays mum on case
President Joe Biden set the tone for his administration’s approach to former President Donald Trump’s indictment Friday with a firm refusal to comment on the case.
Vice President Kamala Harris and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre separately refused. Both told reporters that the decision is tied to the ongoing nature of the case against Trump.
“Look, we’re just not going to comment on any ongoing case, and I will just leave it there,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One en route to Mississippi, where the president toured recent storm damage.
Bragg’s office defends inquiry
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is defending the unprecedented criminal case against Trump in a letter to House Republicans, calling their repeated criticism of the investigation “unnecessary and unjustified.”
The letter, the only substantial public comment on the case to come from Bragg’s office since Thursday’s indictment, is the latest back-and-forth between Trump’s allies in Congress and the prosecutor leading the Manhattan case.
READ MORE: Who is Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney overseeing case against Trump?
“Even worse, based on your reportedly close collaboration with Mr. Trump in attacking this Office and the grand jury process, it appears you are acting more like criminal defense counsel trying to gather evidence for a client than a legislative body seeking to achieve a legitimate legislative objective,” general counsel Leslie Dubeck wrote to three Republican chairmen in a letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
Reps. Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil have criticized the grand jury investigation as an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”
The chairmen had requested testimony as well as documents and copies of any communications with the Justice Department.
Bragg did not answer reporters’ questions on the indictment against Trump on Friday morning after he attended a high-profile sentencing hearing in an unrelated case.
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