Former president of the United States Donald Trump has announced he is officially a target in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot, as his legal woes pile up before the 2024 election.

Mr Trump said he had been formally informed that he is a target in the grand jury investigation.

“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was a Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6 Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment (sic),” Mr Trump’s statement said.

The special counsel, assigned by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is examining Mr Trump and his allies’ role in the deadly January 2021 capital riot, which attempted to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election win and return the former president to the White House despite his election loss in November 2020.

Supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Photo: Getty

If he is indicted, it will be the third time in 2023 Mr Trump has been criminally charged after he pleaded not guilty to 37 felonies regarding his handling of classified documents and 34 felonies of violating a New York law on corporate record-keeping.

The other charges

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced a New York state indictment in April, Mr Trump became the first former president to be criminally charged.

“The people of the state of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” District Attorney Bragg said.

The charges are for allegedly falsifying corporate records in relation to hush money allegedly paid to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels, who received $130,000 from a shell company, another unnamed woman who received $150,000 and a $30,000 payment to his former doorman, who claimed to have a story about Mr Trump having a child out of wedlock.

Mr Trump is also facing another pending federal criminal case brought by Mr Smith, alongside his personal aide Walt Nauta, after a grand jury indicted him in June on 37 felony accounts relating to his mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

Under the Presidential Records Act, all presidential records must be handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of a president’s term.

When the National Archives became aware of missing documents, it requested Mr Trump return them and when he refused, an FBI raid of Mar-A-Lago, the resort residence of Mr Trump, discovered boxes that held classified materials.

The search recovered 13,000 government documents of which 300 were classified, according to the FBI, including defence secrets.

A stack of boxed documents in a room at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Photo: Department of Justice

The New York Times obtained tapes, which will be used as evidence by Mr Smith, of Mr Trump admitting the documents were classified and he knew he should not show them to people.

In Georgia, a grand jury is examining whether crimes were committed by Mr Trump and his allies in an attempt to pressure state election officials into overturning the election result in his favour.

Mr Trump’s now-infamous phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where he tried to pressure Mr Raffensperger into “finding him the votes” to win Georgia, will likely be a key piece of evidence if charges are brought.

Political future

For anybody else, two sets of criminal charges, and potentially a third and fourth on the way, would end a political career.

Mr Trump, however, defies traditional political logic and continues to be the clear favourite for the Republican nomination.

According to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Mr Trump holds a huge lead over his main rival Ron DeSantis, averaging 50.4 per cent of support from Republican voters.

There are no laws banning a criminally charged person from running for president, and it is even possible to win from prison.