Donald Trump, the former US president, has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on charges relating to payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter. The exact nature of the charges was not immediately clear. Prosecutors said they were working to coordinate Trump’s surrender, which could happen early next week. The indictment, the first against a former president, injects a local district attorney’s office into the heart of a national presidential race. Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024.