WASHINGTON: In the first prosecution of its kind, a grand jury in New York has voted to indict former President Donald Trump on charges related to paying off porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign, multiple U.S. news outlets reported on Thursday.

The highly anticipated charges came as Trump seeks a return to the White House after losing a reelection bid in 2020, making him both the only former president and the only presidential candidate to be indicted.

The criminal charges against Trump were unclear, as the indictment remained under seal. But they grew out of the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into a payment of $130,000 that Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

Cohen has said he made the secret payment at Trump’s direction and was later reimbursed by the Trump Organization, Trump’s real estate company, for “legal” services.

While paying hush money is not illegal, federal prosecutors charged that classifying the payment as a “legal retainer” fee violated federal campaign finance laws.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to multiple federal criminal charges, including campaign finance violations, and later served more than one year in prison.

Under New York law, falsifying business records is normally a misdemeanor. But when it is done with the intent to commit or hide another crime, it rises to the level of a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.

A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Cohen, who testified before the grand jury investigating the hush money payment, confirmed Trump’s indictment in a statement.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case. In a statement, he called the indictment “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history.”

“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,” the former president wrote.

While Trump has admitted reimbursing Cohen for the hush money payment, he has said it “had nothing to do with the campaign” and instead has accused the New York prosecutor, a Democrat, of carrying out a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

With an indictment looming, Trump last Friday warned of “potential death and destruction” if he was indicted. On Saturday, he held a rally in Waco, Texas, where he told supporters he was being investigated “for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair.”

Surrender to authorities

The charges against Trump were widely anticipated after the former president recently announced that he would be “arrested” within days and urged his supporters to protest.

But it wasn’t immediately clear when and how he would be taken into custody before being formally charged in a courtroom.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said recently that the former president would not refuse to surrender to the authorities in New York.

In New York, white collar criminal defendants can negotiate a surrender to the authorities.

Trump, who lives in Florida, would have to fly to New York in order to turn himself in.

Once in police custody, he would be fingerprinted and photographed in keeping with standard processing procedures.

(VOA)