Yes, Donald Trump would be the first former president to be indicted

The potential criminal charges against Trump stem from allegations that he paid $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter they had years earlier. 

Though other former presidents have faced legal trouble in the past, former New York state legislator Jon Cooper claimed in a viral tweet that Trump would be the first former president in U.S. history to be criminally indicted. 

THE QUESTION

Would Donald Trump be the first former president to be indicted? 

THE SOURCES 

THE ANSWER

Yes, Donald Trump would be the first former president to be indicted. 

WHAT WE FOUND

Donald Trump would be the first former president to be criminally indicted in U.S. history, according to Jeremi Suri, Ph.D., a history and public affairs professor at The University of Texas at Austin.

VERIFY was unable to find any federal records of former presidents being indicted, confirming Suri’s assertion. But there are at least two who came close: Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

But Nixon never faced any charges in connection to Watergate. That’s because President Gerald Ford granted Nixon a “full, free and absolute pardon” for any crimes, protecting him from prosecution. 

Though Nixon was pardoned, other people within his administration were convicted or pleaded guilty and served prison terms. 

Clinton also avoided indictment after he lied in a deposition about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky while he was president. He reached a deal with prosecutors, admitting that he gave false testimony under oath, the Washington Post reported in January 2001. 

According to the Post, Clinton also reached an agreement with Arkansas authorities to pay $25,000 in fines and have his law license suspended for five years.

Suri said former President Ronald Reagan also came close to indictment for a political scandal known as the Iran-Contra Affair, in which his administration sold weapons to Iran to free American hostages held in Lebanon. But Reagan never faced any charges.

While Trump’s indictment would mark the first for a former president, there are reports that President Ulysses S. Grant was the first to be arrested while in office. 

In 1872, while Grant was president, he was stopped and arrested in 1872 for speeding through the streets of Washington, D.C. in his horse-drawn carriage, the newspaper reported. 

“I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation, and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest,” former Police Officer William West reportedly told Grant.

Grant paid a $20 bond, which was later forfeited because he didn’t show up for court, the Evening Star reported.