Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud, sources tell CNN. He’s the first former US president to be criminally charged.
Obed Eshun 
Crowd shows support for Trump near Mar-a-Lago following indictment
Police are outside the front gate of Mar-a-Lago a few hours after former President Donald Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury.
Meanwhile, on the nearby bridge, a few dozen people are showing support for the former president, waving Trump and MAGA flags. The crowd is also playing the song “God Bless the USA.”
CNN saw a much larger presence of supporters in August after the search warrant was executed.
Pence says Trump and Cohen’s charges are different
When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer whether Michael Cohen’s payments to silence women who claimed affairs with Donald Trump were a crime, former Vice President Mike Pence said the self-described fixer went to jail for “lying to Congress.”
“Well, I can see the lying to congress is a crime, which was — if memory serves — what Michael Cohen went to jail for the most part,” Pence said.
Some background: Cohen pleaded guilty to nine federal crimes including tax fraud, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations for helping pay off two women who threatened to go public with past alleged affairs with Trump just before the 2016 election. Trump has denied the affairs.
Trump was indicted Thursday on more than 30 counts related to business fraud.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating the former president in connection with his alleged role in the hush money payment scheme.
“This decision today is a great disservice to the country,” Pence says
Former Vice President Mike Pence said that while “no one is above the law, including former presidents,” that he cannot “speak to the merit of this case at all.”
“I really do believe that this decision today is a great disservice to the country and the idea that for the first time in American history a former president would be indicted on a campaign finance issue to me, it just smacks of political prosecution, and I think the overwhelming majority of the American people will see it that way,” Pence told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Credit: From CNN’s Leyla Santiago