Former US President Donald Trump will be indicted for paying a porn star just before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence, the BBC has reported.

Details of the charges against him have not yet been released. The indictment is likely to be announced in the coming days, the New York Times reported, citing four people familiar with the matter.

A New York prosecutor has confirmed the indictment of former President Donald Trump, and his office said the Republican's attorneys had contacted him to "coordinate his surrender for indictment."

"Instructions will be given when an indictment date is selected," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's spokesman said in a statement, adding that the indictment was still sealed.

Jurors voted to indict him after hearing witnesses about Trump's $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in an attempt to buy her silence, the BBC noted. The goal was to stop her from going public about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump ten years earlier.

That payment is at the heart of the Manhattan district attorney's impeachment case against Trump, reportedly related to a possible violation of campaign finance rules.

On March 18, Trump said he expected to be arrested within days for paying Stormy Daniels. Trump denies any wrongdoing. The 76-year-old Republican would become the first former or sitting president to be charged with a crime. And this will turn upside down the race for the White House in 2024, in which Trump is fighting to regain his position, commented AFP. Trump, who lives in Florida, is now expected to appear in New York for the first court hearing. The BBC reports that he is likely to be arrested in the coming days. He is due to be fingerprinted and photographed, as with all criminal defendants, adds the BBC.

Former US President Donald Trump has slammed the decision to indict him over "bribe" payments made to a porn star, lashing out at prosecutors and his political opponents. "This is political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history," he said in a statement.

"Even before I was sworn in as your President of the United States, radical left-wing Democrats -- the enemy of the hardworking men and women of this country -- engaged in a Witch Hunt," he said.

In a five-paragraph statement released within minutes of the news of the indictment, Trump vowed revenge as he plans to return to the White House in 2024.

"I believe this witch hunt is going to turn against Joe Biden," he said.

Trump, who last weekend held his first campaign rally for the 2024 election, added: "We're going to beat Joe Biden and throw all but one of these crooked Democrats out of office."

His second son Eric commented on Twitter:

"This is third-world prosecutorial error. This is opportunistic targeting of a political opponent in a campaign year."

Porn star Stormy Daniels' attorney said the indictment against former President Donald Trump shows that "no one is above the law."

"The impeachment of Donald Trump is nothing to be happy about," Clark Brewster tweeted. "Now let truth and justice prevail."

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