Donald Trump Indicted by New York Grand Jury

Members of a federal grand jury in Manhattan have voted to indict former President Donald Trump. The charges Trump will face have not been announced, the New York Times reports. A lawyer for the former president, Joe Tacopina, said Thursday that he'd been informed of the indictment, per the AP. The case before the grand jury concerned a payment of hush money to a porn actress made during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Trump becomes the first former president of the US to be charged with a crime.

This means Trump will soon be arrested. He'll be processed much the same way any felony criminal defendant in New York is, including having his fingerprints and photograph taken. He may or may not be handcuffed. Although it's standard procedure to have their hands secured behind their backs, white-collar defendants who don't appear to pose a physical threat sometimes are handcuffed in front, per the Times. Armed Secret Service agents evidently will accompany Trump when he's taken into custody and when he appears before a judge. When the charges involve nonviolent felonies, as is the case with Trump, defendants usually are released on their own recognizance. New York law forbids prosecutors to request bail. But everything about the case is unprecedented. (More Donald Trump stories.)