Former US president Donald Trump has been offered by New York prosecutors the chance to testify to a grand jury over the hush money he allegedly paid a porn star.

The investigation on the matter may soon end in an indictment, the New York Times and Washington Post reported.

The New York grand jury investigation involves a $130,000 payment made just before the 2016 presidential election to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, has said she had an affair with Trump years before he became president. The Times said that such offers to testify ”almost always indicate an indictment is close.”

Both papers quoted people with knowledge of the proceedings led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who took office in January.

His predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., also a Democrat, had launched an investigation into Trump’s finances in 2019, which resulted in a years-long legal battle over the billionaire’s tax documents.

If an indictment were to be filed, it would mark the first time a former US president has been charged with a crime. The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Criminal probes

Trump, who has already declared another bid for the White House, is facing several criminal probes at the state and federal levels over possible wrongdoing before, during and after his first term in office. He has not yet been charged in any of them.

In Georgia, a prosecutor is investigating Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the southern state.

The former president is also the subject of a federal probe into his handling of classified documents as well as his possible involvement in the 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol.

That investigation was handed to an independent special counsel shortly after Trump formally announced his new candidacy for the White House.

Trump lashed out Thursday evening on his Truth Social page, calling the New York investigation “a political Witch-Hunt, trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party.”

“I never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, nor would I have wanted to have an affair with Stormy Daniels,” he said, without confirming that he had been offered the chance to testify.

with AFP