Former president Donald J. Trump, the first American president to be charged with a crime, turned himself in to the authorities in Manhattan this past Tuesday, appearing in the courtroom the afternoon of April 4, 2023. Trump has been charged by a New York grand jury with multiple felony counts of falsifying business records in an indictment unsealed Tuesday, with prosecutors detailing an alleged years-long scheme to use “hush money” payments, saying the scheme involved payments made by Trump allies to conceal damaging stories.

The indictment consists of 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the first degree. The charges stem from a payment that was made to Stormy Daniels, who in October 2016, during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, was trying to sell her story of an affair with Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney made the payment to Daniels in the days before the 2016 election. Prosecutors said Trump illegally disguised his reimbursement to Cohen by classifying them as legal fees.

Falsifying business records is typically a misdemeanor under New York law but can be charged as a felony if done with an “intent to defraud [that] includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof” Prosecutors said, continuing to state that Trump’s conduct was intended to violate election laws.

Trump has described the indictment in the Stormy Daniels case as “political persecution” and said he doesn’t expect a fair trial.

But that isn’t the only crimes he will be faced with dealing with. There are still other cases that could have a big impact on him both personally and politically.

• The Department of Justice is looking into the removal of government documents from the White House, which were then taken to Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after he left office. Investigators are assessing how these documents were stored and who may have had access to them.
• Prosecutors spent eight months looking into alleged attempts to overturn Trump’s narrow loss in the state in the 2020 presidential election.
• Trump’s alleged role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s election victory, is under scrutiny from several federal government bodies.

These charges can greatly affect the next presidential election for 2024. But cannot prevent him from trying to be elected, even if he is sentenced to an amount of jail time, he is still able to be elected.