What has Donald Trump been up to in his first year out of office?

The 45th president of the US continues to face legal troubles since leaving the White House

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After a chaotic four years in office, exactly one year ago President Donald Trump left the White House and Washington DC. While the former president has lost his social media megaphone, over the course of the past year he has tried his best to stay in the spotlight.

Mr Trump has launched new websites, new apps, made a play for midterms and continued to dominate the news with his legal proceedings.

Here are the main events of the past year in Mr Trump's world.

January 2021 On January 6, President Trump stood by as his supporters attacked the US Capitol. Mr Trump has been criticised for not only pushing his supporters to riot over the 2020 election results but of not stopping the violence in time. Hours after the storming of the Capitol, Mr Trump posted a video to Twitter telling his supporters: “I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election,” Mr Trump said, repeating familiar falsehoods. “But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order.”

Later that month social media companies suspended Mr Trump's accounts, cutting off his megaphone.

US attorney general vows to hold all January 6 perpetrators accountable

Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, January 5, 2022, in advance of the one year anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol.  (Photo by Carolyn Kaster  /  POOL  /  AFP)

March 2021 Mr Trump and his team launch 45Office.com, a website commemorating his time in the White House.

May 2021 Launched a communications platform – described by many as a blog – on donaldjtrump.com. A video described it as “a space to speak freely and safely” that would publish content “straight from the desk of Donald J. Trump”. The site was unpopular and was shut down just a month later.

June 2021 Mr Trump said that he was “writing like crazy” and working on what he promises to be “the book of all books”. The book will be published by Winning Team Publishing, a new publishing house run by former Trump campaign aide Sergio Gor and Mr Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.

July 2021 New York prosecutors charged the Trump Organisation and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, with a 15-year alleged tax scheme, which was “the first criminal case against the former president's namesake company", according to reports.

August 2021 Mr Trump led calls for successor Joe Biden to quit over the US's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, with each president blaming the other for creating the crisis.

October 2021 Mr Trump launches TRUTH, a social networking app that is expected to look similar to Twitter. He told supporters: "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favourite American president has been silenced.”

January 2022 New York Attorney General Leticia James details possible fraud in Mr Trump's businesses and subpoenas Mr Trump and his children.

Updated: June 20, 2023, 10:29 AM