GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A grand jury decided Thursday to indict former President Donald Trump. It’s not clear yet what the exact charges are, but they stem from alleged hush-money payments to adult film actress, Stormy Daniels.
READ MORE: Grand jury votes to indict former President Donald Trump; Surrender being coordinated
FOX 17 talked with Jeffery Swartz, a Western Michigan University Cooley Law School criminal law and criminal procedure professor, to find out what happens next.
Swartz explained that an indictment is the first step in the process—when someone is formally charged with a serious crime.
He said Richard Nixon would have been the first former president to face criminal charges if Gerald R. Ford did not pardon him.
Unlike Nixon though, Trump is running for office.
Swartz said this case likely won’t affect Trump’s bid for the White House; however, the other investigations—including the election case in Georgia and the January 6 insurrection—could.
“For lack of another way to put it, now the water has broken,” Swartz told FOX 17. “And I think there’s going to be a flood. I think this is the beginning. If I had to guess, this is the beginning of the end.”
He says Trump could have avoided this day if he had stayed in New York because the statute of limitations would have ended.
But since the former president moved to Florida, he left himself open for these charges.
