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Apart from Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in a scheme to silence an adult film star, here is a list of notable ongoing investigations, lawsuits and controversies hanging over the former president.
Mar-a-Lago documents: Did Trump mishandle classified material?
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s resort and into parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection. The DOJ investigation continues into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after he left office.
2020 election and January 6: US Justice Department
Smith’s purview also includes the period after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol.
Aspects of the Justice Department’s probe include the use of so-called fake electors from states that Trump falsely claimed he had won, such as Georgia and Arizona. Trump has been fighting to keep former advisers from testifying about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down criminal investigators.
2020 election: Efforts to overturn Georgia results
Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis oversaw a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia. She is considering bringing conspiracy and racketeering charges, CNN’s Don Lemon reported.
2020 election and January 6: House select committee
Before concluding at the end of 2022, the House select committee referred Trump to the Justice Department on at least four criminal charges. It investigated the US Capitol attack and uncovered dramatic evidence of Trump’s actions before and on January 6, especially efforts to use the levers of government to overturn the election. It also issued an 845-page report.
Trump Organization: Convicted of criminal tax fraud
The Trump Organization was convicted in December by a New York jury of tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records in what prosecutors allege was a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation provided to employees. Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to his role in the tax scheme and was sentenced to five months at Rikers Island. He will be released this summer.
Trump Organization: NY attorney general investigation
New York Attorney General Letitia James, after a lengthy investigation, sued Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization in September, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former president used to enrich himself. James is seeking $250 million in allegedly ill-gotten funds. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has called the investigation politically motivated based on the electoral ambitions of James, a Democrat. A trial is set for October 2023.
E. Jean Carroll: Defamation suit over Trump’s denial of rape claims
Former magazine writer E. Jean Carroll alleged Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defamed her when he denied the rape, said she was not his “type” and alleged she had made the claim to boost sales of her book. Trump denies all claims brought against him by Carroll.
January 6: Lawsuits by police officers
Several members of the US Capitol Police and Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police are suing Trump, saying his words and actions incited the 2021 riot. The various cases accuse Trump of directing assault and battery; aiding and abetting assault and battery; and violating Washington laws that prohibit incitement of riots and disorderly conduct.
Personal retaliation: Peter Strzok lawsuit
Former top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who was fired by the FBI in 2018 after the revelation of anti-Trump texts he had exchanged with a top lawyer at the bureau, Lisa Page, has sued the Justice Department alleging he was terminated improperly.
Strzok and Page were constant targets of verbal attacks by Trump and his allies as part of the larger ire Trump expressed toward the FBI during the Trump-Russia investigation. Trump repeatedly and publicly called for Strzok’s ouster until he was fired in August 2018. A federal judge ruled last month that Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray can be deposed for two hours each as part of the lawsuit.
Trump-filed lawsuits: Bob Woodward
Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward in January 2023 for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward had released audio from their interviews without Trump’s consent. Woodward and publisher Simon & Schuster said Trump’s case is without merit.
Trump-filed lawsuits: The New York Times, Mary Trump and CNN
The former president in 2021 sued his niece and The New York Times in New York state court over the disclosure of his tax information.
Trump’s lawsuit – which is seeking “damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but believed to be no less than One Hundred Million Dollars” – alleges that Mary Trump’s disclosure of the tax information to the Times amounted to an illegal breach of contract, among other claims, because the disclosure allegedly violated the 2001 settlement agreement among the Trump family. The Times is fighting the lawsuit.
Donald Trump also sued CNN in a southern Florida federal court last fall, accusing the network of a “campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander” that “escalated in recent months.” CNN has asked the judge for the case to be “dismissed with prejudice.”
