CNN and other media sites swiftly confirmed the report through their own sources, calling it a "historic revelation that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation's first former president to face criminal charges."
NBC News reported that law authorities had started putting enhanced protection around the lower Manhattan courthouse where the grand jury had been convening just before the news of the indictment leaked.
The Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office has been looking into Trump for more than five years, and their investigation centers on a $130,000 payment to Daniels that was made soon before the 2016 presidential election. Michael Cohen, Trump's personal attorney, allegedly paid the payment but was later reimbursed by the president.
The grand jury Bragg called to investigate the charges has been investigating into claims that Trump allegedly fabricated financial documents to hide the payment.
Cohen, who has grown to be a vocal opponent of Trump, has participated in numerous interviews with prosecutors and has informed reporters that he expects Trump to face charges.
For making the payments "at the direction" of Trump, which broke campaign finance regulations and were allegedly intended to conceal Trump's extramarital affair with Daniels, Cohen entered a guilty plea in federal court in 2018.
Midway through March, Trump published a message on his Truth Social platform asking his fans to "TAKE OUR NATION BACK!
When Trump was not indicted on his timeline, he continued to write about the impending indictment, ranting against Bragg in particular, and claimed he "WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK."
Several detractors interpreted Trump's sharing of the clip as a blatant threat because it showed him holding a bat on one side and a picture of Bragg's head on the other.
