Chelsea Bailey
Live reporter, Washington DC

Image source, Reuters

It's just after 10:00 in the morning in New York and we are just hours away from the historic arraignment of former US President Donald Trump. If you're just joining our live coverage, welcome!

Our BBC News colleagues are stationed in Manhattan and across the country to take you behind the scenes, and bring you reaction as it comes in.

This morning, we're expecting Donald Trump's supporters to stage a rally shortly, organised by Republican House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Thousands of police officers are on standby – although violent scenes are not expected.

And where is Donald Trump? He's currently in his residence in Trump Tower but he's expected to arrive at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse sometime mid-afternoon local time.

Watch this space for the latest breaking news.

Trump is awake and is calling it "a tragic day for our Republic".

An email went out to his mailing list with the subject "My last email before my arrest" in which he asks people to "chip in to save America", and includes a fundraising link. He also expresses concern that the US is becoming a "Marxist Third World country".

Soon after the email went out, Trump posted an all-caps message on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, criticising the New York location of his court appearance later as a "very unfair venue with some areas that voted 1% Republican".

Trump also calls the judge who will arraign him "highly partisan" and says his family are "well-known Trump haters".

Trump says that Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw last year's criminal trial of the Trump Organization, was "impossible to deal with during the witch hunt trial."

"KANGAROO COURT!", Trump concludes.

Image source, .

As far as we know, Donald Trump is currently in Trump Tower.

This afternoon, escorted by Secret Service agents, he will go to Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for the arraignment.

The journey from Trump’s New York City residence to the courthouse in lower Manhattan is typically a 30-minute drive south.

However, Trump is likely to get there a lot faster. He’ll have fleet of security vehicles and police escorting him, and multiple roads en route to the building will be closed to the public.

Dozens of agents, including Secret Service, New York Police Department, court security officials, and US Marshals have meticulously planned his commute, entry and exit.

Police reportedly toured the courthouse on Friday to ensure his safety, outlining safety provisions for the waves of Trump protestors and fans expected.

He is likely to travel down either Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue, as he makes his way toward the courthouse, located at 100 Centre Street.

His exact travel details remain unconfirmed, but it appears officials are not taking any risks to ensure his safety.

Image source, Getty Images

The indictment is expected to set out what prosecutors believe Trump has done, with some information as to how and when, and from that we will get a sense of the case they have built against him.

The Manhattan District Attorney (DA)'s office routinely prosecutes people for falsifying business records, but convicting on a felony charge could be more challenging, said Norm Eisen, an expert on law, ethics and anti-corruption at the Brookings Institution.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg would have to prove that Trump knew he was breaking the law and that he falsified business records with the aim of helping his presidential campaign.

Bragg could point to a specific New York election law that bars candidates from conspiring "by unlawful means" to advance a campaign, said Jerry Goldfeder, a New York election and campaign finance lawyer.

Trump's lawyers say the payment to Daniels were made to shield his family from false allegations, and were unrelated to his campaign. Daniels was threatening to cancel her previous non-disclosure agreement to keep the alleged affair a secret, according to The Washington Post, external.

"He had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was going to be publicly embarrassing to him," Tacopina said.

His defence team is likely to continue to rely on this argument, legal experts said, but it could be challenged based on the timing of the payment.

That could "suggest that it was the campaign that motivated it, not the desire to keep her from embarrassing him", said David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

Read more here.

A scrum of reporters swarmed US Congressman George Santos outside the Manhattan court where former President Donald Trump will be arraigned this afternoon.

The embattled New York lawmaker said he felt his constituents needed to see that "their representative supports the rule of law" and will stand up to Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg. "I'm not here for the cameras, I'm here to support the president of the United States who's been unfairly attacked by a DA," he said.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from New York

Image source, Getty Images

The interior of the Manhattan courthouse where Trump will be booked and arraigned is a far cry from the extravagant and gilded halls that the former president usually roams.

While visitors to the courthouse are first greeted with a soaring atrium, the rest of the building is significantly less awe-inspiring.

The upstairs hallway where the courtroom is located is rather dimly lit, with green marble floors the color of marsh water.

Beige paint, with dark-green accented doorways, comprise the rest of the décor. Though drab, it will buzz with reporters, lawyers, police and security in just a couple of hours, when Trump arrives for his arraignment hearing.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source, Getty Images

Sometime this afternoon, Donald Trump will be led by a slew of secret service agents into the 17-storey steel-framed Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for his arraignment.

Multiple roads adjacent to the area will be closed off from the public, as the secret service, New York Police Department, court security officials and US Marshals carve out a path for Trump to enter the building, located at 100 Centre Street.

Inside: fingerprinting and a Supreme Court judge await him, and… a history of high-profile criminal cases.

Bernard (Bernie) Madoff, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein are just a few of the criminally charged - and convicted - celebrities to have walked through the corridors of the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.

Some media are reporting that Trump will appear in the same courtroom as Weinstein, though it remains unconfirmed.

The Manhattan courthouse, external has 19 "court parts", including multiple courtrooms.

Image source, Getty Images

It's close to 09:30 in New York, and prosecutor Alvin Bragg has arrived at the Manhattan District Attorney's office, near the New York County Criminal Court where Donald Trump will appear later.

Jeremy Gahagan
Live reporter

It's approaching 09:30 in New York, and 14:30 in London, where my colleagues and I have been reporting on the build-up to Donald Trump's formal arrest later today.

Large crowds of media and police are in place outside the Manhattan court where Trump will be the first former US president to face criminal charges.

A rally for Donald Trump is expected in the city later, organised by Republican House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Thousands of NYPD officers are on standby – although violent scenes are not expected.

Before then, I'm handing over the reins to my colleagues in the Washington bureau, who will be guiding you through the day's events.

Trump is currently in Trump Tower, where he stayed overnight. He's expected to arrive at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse sometime mid-afternoon local time, so stay with us as we bring you the latest on this historic day.

We'll be answering your questionspublished at 14:22 British Summer Time 4 April 2023

14:22 BST 4 April 2023

We've been receiving a variety of questions related to today's historic events and have been able to put them to our Americast colleagues.

They'll be answering some of your queries throughout the day.

Image source, EPA

You can watch live BBC coverage from New York, including from our correspondent Gary O'Donoghue who is outside the court building where Trump will appear a little later.

Click the Play button at the top of this page to watch.

2006: Stormy Daniels - then 27 - allegedly has sex with Donald Trump, 60, in a hotel room after a golf tournament, a month after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron.

2011: Stormy Daniels gives an interview to a magazine about her claims of an affair with Donald Trump. The article is not published after the magazine is allegedly threatened with a lawsuit.

2016: Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, pays Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence, days before Trump is elected president.

2018: The Wall Street Journal publishes a story about the alleged hush money, and says that Cohen helped suppress the 2011 magazine story. Trump denies the affair, Cohen denies the payment. Later that year Cohen pleads guilty to tax evasion, is sentenced to three years in prison, and testifies Trump directed him to make the hush money payment.

2019: Manhattan District Attorney’s office begins investigating fraud allegations against Trump Organization.

2020: Donald Trump loses the presidential election.

2023: A grand jury is convened to look at evidence in the hush-money probe. On 15 March, Cohen testifies for three hours. On 18 March, Trump says on social media he expects to be arrested.

You can read more details about what happened between Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump here.

Image source, Reuters

At the centre of this indictment is Stormy Daniels, a former porn star and stripper, who says she had an affair with Donald Trump a decade before he became president.

But what do we know about her?

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims she first met Trump at a charity golf tournament in July 2006.

The adult film actress alleges they had sex once in his hotel room at Lake Tahoe, a resort area between California and Nevada, shortly after his wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron.

Daniels, 44, also claims a stranger approached her in 2011, shortly after she had agreed to sit down for a tell-all interview with In Touch magazine, and threatened to harm her infant daughter if she didn’t "leave Trump alone".

In 2010, Daniels briefly considered running for the US Senate from her home state on the Republican ticket.

Her star turn as a thorn in Trump’s side since the 2016 election has won her many admirers online, leading to strip club and stand-up comedy tours.

Trump has repeatedly denied having an affair with her, often denigrating her appearance on social media, but wrote in a January post: “The 'Stormy' nonsense... is VERY OLD & happened a long time ago."

Sam Hancock
Live reporter

This is the first time a sitting or former president of the US has faced criminal charges - so we’re in unchartered territory.

We know this is about a hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels: she says she and Trump had an affair and that she accepted $130,000 (£105,000) from his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, before the 2016 election in exchange for her silence. Trump has previously denied the affair.

We don't know the specific charges: details of them, including what they are and how many there are, haven’t been released yet. Joe Tacopina, Trump's lawyer, has said he himself has not yet seen the charges.

Sources familiar with the case have told US media that Trump is being charged with falsifying business records in the first degree - a crime under US law - which suggests there's an issue with how the money was recorded in official accounts.

We know that Trump won't be handcuffed: The Manhattan courthouse he's due to appear in will be closed for the hearing, according to Tacopina, who's also indicated that his client won't be handcuffed.

We don't know if he'll have to do a perp walk - though the fact Trump's due to hand himself in, before the hearing, makes this unlikely.

Sarah Smith
North America editor

Donald Trump has lived his whole life as though he is trying to prove the theory that all publicity is good publicity. His appearance in court today as a criminal defendant will test that cliché to the limit.

This case has certainly put him back in the spotlight: Like it or not, this court date is also an election campaign event.

Since the indictment against him was announced last week his campaign has been boasting about how much money it has raised (over $8m, they say) and cite opinion polls that suggest his lead over Republican opponents for the presidential nomination has grown.

So perhaps Trump can use a criminal trial to his advantage during the electoral primaries when it is loyal Republicans who are voting.

But that same tactic could backfire when it comes to the general election.

Across the US, from Georgia to Wisconsin, I have spoken to very many independents and swing voters who say that while they liked Trump's policies when he was in office, they are now tired of the chaos and drama that surrounds him.

By turning a prosecution into a political spectacle he risks alienating the very voters he would need to win back the White House in November 2024.

• Read Sarah’s full analysis here

Image source, CBS News

It's now 8:20am in New York and all the US and all major news channels are leading with former President Donald Trump facing criminal charges after a grand jury in New York voted to indict him.

Here are their headlines:

CNN: Trump set to surrender and face criminal charges

CNN's Crime and Justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz said Hogan Place, the location of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, is "entirely shut down". He told CNN's morning programme that court officers are handling security outside the building which he said was unusual.

CBS: Trump to surrender and appear in court to face charges in New York

CBS's Politics correspondent Robert Costa said he expected a long wait for a decision in the case. "There will be a lot of skirmishing," he said.

On the question of the degree of support for the former president among Republicans, he says there is "not a lot of love for former President Trump" from the powerful members of the party - but that there was some grassroots support.

ABC News: 'I just don't know what to expect to see,’ Trump’s lawyer says

"This is unprecedented. I don't know. I've done a million arraignments in that courthouse with celebrities and whatnot. But this is a whole different thing. We have Secret Service involved. I understand they're closing the courthouse for the afternoon. I just don't know what to expect to see," Trump's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told ABC This Week.

Fox News: Trump to be charged with 34 felony counts - report

Fox and Friends hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt discussed the report of 34 felony counts Trump may face, mentioned in a Yahoo News report quoting one source. "We still don't know what these counts are," Steve Doocy said.

Host Brian Kilmeade drew attention to Trump's demand that Alvin Bragg resign for what he said was "illegally leaking" the details of indictment.

Kilmeade said that no-one looked into these alleged felonies when Trump was host of the Apprentice programme, but became interested when he ran for president.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from New York

For dozens of journalists, the workday actually began yesterday afternoon, when the line to gain access to the courtroom where Trump will be arraigned began.

Court officials said they will start handing out passes to enter the courtroom and two overflow rooms at 08:00 local time. For media organisations, that meant an overnight wait for a figurative golden ticket.

Some outlets sent or hired stand-ins for the night. Adonis Porch, a 36-year-old hired line sitter, was the first to arrive.

“I’m excited for what I’m waiting for, because this is history in the making,” he said, beaming from the one-person pop up tent he’d brought to shelter from the cold.

A pair of reporters quickly took it upon themselves to organise a rota that they used to police the line order. Multiple boxes of pizza quickly arrived.

By dawn, the trash cans were full of discarded coffee cups and pizza boxes. Sleepiness transitioned into alertness and excitement as the pass distribution time drew near, and fresh reinforcements and caffeine arrived.

Gary O'Donoghue
Reporting from New York

Image source, Getty Images

Police have been closing roads and putting up more barricades around the court in preparation for Donald Trump's arrival in the early afternoon.

Space in a nearby park has been set aside for protesters - both pro and anti - though authorities are cautiously optimistic that there won't be trouble.

When Trump is taken into custody, he'll be fingerprinted, before being escorted into the court room on the 15th floor where the charges will be read to him.

The judge has denied requests for the proceedings to be televised, though five photographers will be allowed in at the beginning to take some pictures which will be shared.

That's when we'll learn the true extent and seriousness of the charges, which relate to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels,

Trump will then be released and return to Florida where he's planning to address his supporters.

We're all waiting for the indictment to be published - it will tell us what the actual charges against Trump are.

We're still not sure when it's going to drop, but we're keeping across it - it is possible Trump's team will share it online before the court publishes it.

We will bring you all the updates on this page as soon as we get them.