A Manhattan grand jury indicted Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges.
On Thursday evening, after news of the charges had been widely reported, the district attorney’s office confirmed that Mr. Trump had been indicted and that prosecutors had contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to authorities in Manhattan.
On social media channels associated with extremists and conspiracy theorists, people searched for an explanation behind former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment on Thursday, with some calling him a victim of a Democratic witch hunt to suppress his influence and others describing him as a grand master playing political chess to reclaim the presidency.
The scattered response reflects the shift in Mr. Trump’s power since a large group of his supporters stormed the Capitol after he lost the 2020 election. In the years since, Mr. Trump’s political movement experienced multiple electoral defeats. Some supporters were jailed after the attack on the Capitol. The social media landscape shifted, and Mr. Trump’s digital reach remains limited by an obligation that he first post on Truth Social, the social network he started last year that has far fewer users than Twitter and Facebook.
Source: New York Times
