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The growing legal woes of Donald Trump

There are a number of legal perils dogging Mr Trump as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024
There are a number of legal perils dogging Mr Trump as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024

Former US president Donald Trump is now facing three criminal indictments, all filed since March - raising the prospect that the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 White House race could end up navigating a series of trials as he campaigns.

He has been indicted on four federal counts in connection to his alleged efforts to interfere with the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Mr Trump has already been indicted over his handling of top secret classified documents, making him the first former US president to face federal criminal charges.

The twice-impeached Trump, who is seeking to return to the White House in 2024, has also been charged in New York with making election-eve hush money payments to a porn star.

Here are the key cases involving the 77-year-old one-term president - and others that could materialise:

2020 election interference

Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled four new charges against Mr Trump related to efforts to overturn the election results.

Mr Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of an official proceeding - the 6 January 2021 meeting of a joint session of Congress held to certify Biden's election victory.

He is also charged with conspiracy to deny Americans the right to vote and to have one's vote counted.

"Each of these conspiracies... targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election," the indictment said.

The indictment mentions six co-conspirators but none are identified - Mr Trump, currently the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is the only named defendant.

Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021

Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, as Congress met to certify the presidential election results - an assault that left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured.

Before the Capitol attack, Mr Trump delivered a fiery speech urging the crowd to "fight like hell."

Classified documents

Mr Trump, in another indictment brought by Mr Smith, is accused of endangering national security by holding onto top secret nuclear and defence documents after leaving the White House.

Mr Trump kept the files - which included records from the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency -- unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and thwarted official efforts to retrieve them, according to the indictment.

FBI officers raided Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home

Mr Trump was initially charged with 31 counts of "willful retention of national defence information," each punishable by up to ten years in prison. An additional count was added last week.

He also faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements and other offences.

Last week, a superseding indictment also added an extra count under the Espionage Act related to Mr Trump allegedly retaining a classified document "concerning military activity in a foreign country."

The federal judge in the case has set a trial date of 20 May 2024, at the height of the presidential campaign.

Stormy hush money

A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump in March over hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump in March over hush money payments
made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels

Prosecutors say the money was paid prior to the 2016 election to silence Ms Daniels over claims she had a relationship with Mr Trump in 2006 - a year after he married Melania Trump.

Late in the campaign, Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a payment of $130,000 to Ms Daniels in exchange for her pledge of confidentiality.

That case, in which he faces 34 felony counts, is due to go to trial next March, in the middle of the Republican primary election season.

Other probes

Donald Trump was found liable in a civil case last month for sexually abusing and defaming an American former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, and ordered the ex-president to pay her $5 million (€4.6 million) in damages.

It marked the first time Mr Trump faced legal consequences over a string of sexual assault allegations dating back decades.

The former leader immediately rejected the verdict as a "disgrace".

Donald Trump's lawyers argued that E. Jean Carroll (pictured) invented the allegation

Separately, Donald Trump is being investigated for pressuring officials in the southern swing state of Georgia to overturn Biden's 2020 victory, including a taped phone call in which he asked the then-secretary of state to "find" enough votes to reverse the result.

The top prosecutor in Georgia's Fulton County, Fani Willis, has assembled a special grand jury that could see Donald Trump facing conspiracy charges connected to election fraud and interference.

This year, the grand jury forewoman said the 23-member panel had recommended indictments of multiple people, including "certainly names that you would recognise". She did not confirm whether Donald Trump was among them.

In New York, meanwhile, the state attorney general Letitia James filed a civil suit against Mr Trump and three of his children, accusing them of fraud by over-valuing assets to secure loans and then under-valuing them to minimize taxes.

Ms James is seeking $250 million (€232 million) in penalties as well as banning Donald Trump and his children from serving as executives at companies in New York.