What are the major corruption allegations against Donald J. Trump and when did they arise?

1. A blockbuster civil finding and its financial and corporate penalties that landed in November 2025

The New York Attorney General’s civil case concluded with a court ruling finding Donald Trump liable for a decade-long scheme to inflate asset values to obtain loans and tax benefits, resulting in a $354.8 million damages award and a five-year prohibition on serving as an officer or director of any New York-based company; the court determined Trump submitted false financial statements to lenders and used inflated values to secure over $300 million in loans ^[1]. The judgment was entered on November 3, 2025, and the opinion ordered remedies that included monetary damages and corporate governance restrictions; Trump announced plans to appeal the ruling, framing it as part of broader litigation strategy. This civil finding adds a high-dollar, court-documented accusation of financial misrepresentation to the mosaic of legal exposure the former president faces and shifts the dispute from investigatory stage to concrete civil liability ^[1].

2. The hush-money indictment: criminal falsification claims rooted in 2016 payments

Separately, prosecutors in New York have pursued criminal charges alleging that Trump orchestrated payments to conceal information in the run-up to the 2016 election, with the case focusing on a payment to adult-film performer Stormy Daniels; the prosecution generated a 34-count indictment alleging falsification of business records tied to that payment, which prosecutors say was intended to hide politically damaging information and improperly influence the 2016 campaign ^[2]. The legal theory in the indictment treats the falsified corporate records not as isolated bookkeeping errors but as elements of a broader unlawful scheme, and prosecutors in court filings have argued that the payments were disguised as ordinary business expenses while defense counsel has framed them as legitimate transactions. The indictment elevates a pre-election episode into a criminal allegation with potential prison exposure and long-term collateral consequences for Trump’s legal and political standing ^[2].

3. Manhattan and state probes: overlapping criminal and civil lines that exposed corporate practices

New York investigators split the work into two parallel tracks: a Manhattan criminal inquiry led to corporate convictions and an indictment of Trump, while the New York Attorney General’s civil probe sought broader remedial relief and uncovered repeated discrepancies between values reported to lenders and to tax authorities ^[3]. The Manhattan district attorney’s work produced convictions of two Trump Organization subsidiary companies on 17 charges, including tax fraud, illustrating prosecutorial findings about systemic bookkeeping and payroll manipulations such as recording employee bonuses as contract payments to reduce taxes and misrepresenting asset values across different audiences. The Attorney General’s civil action secured an independent monitor to oversee future compliance, indicating that officials sought not only punishment but structural changes to prevent recurrence. These twin tracks demonstrate how regulators used both criminal statutes and civil remedies to address alleged corporate practices ^[3].

4. How the timing of allegations maps onto legal consequences and political narratives

The allegations span events alleged to have occurred largely over a decade and climaxed in visible legal actions during 2025: the civil judgment was entered November 3, 2025, while reporting on the hush-money prosecution and related indictments was current as of early November 2025 and mid-October 2025 ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The underlying factual windows reach back to at least 2016 for the hush-money matter and describe a prolonged pattern of asset-reporting choices across many years for the civil fraud case. Prosecutors emphasize the length and repetitiveness of the conduct to justify significant penalties and oversight; defense narratives, as reported in contemporaneous coverage, stress lack of criminal intent and plan to appeal civil rulings, framing actions as business judgment or lawful transactions. Those competing narratives inform both courtroom strategies and the public-policy interpretation of the cases ^{[1] [2]}.

5. What remains contested and what each side emphasizes going forward

Key contested points include intent, the characterization of payments and accounting entries, and the appropriate institutional response: prosecutors argue the entries and transactions were deliberately misleading and part of an orchestrated fraud, while defense teams deny criminal intent and present many transactions as legitimate business practices that do not warrant criminal sanctions ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The civil remedy imposed by the Attorney General includes a five-year corporate role ban and a monetary judgment intended to disgorge ill-gotten benefits, while criminal prosecutions raise the prospect of convictions and prison exposure for individuals; simultaneous civil and criminal exposure means appeals, monitorships, and continuing litigation will shape outcomes more than any single headline ruling. The record as of October–November 2025 shows substantial legal traction for prosecutors but unresolved factual and legal issues that will play out through appeals and further proceedings ^{[1] [2] [3]}.