If convicted, could Donald Trump serve as US president?
From CNN's Zachary B. Wolf and Jack Forrest
In this June 2019 photo, then-President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with advisors about fentanyl in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges related to 2020 election subversion, a stunning third time this year that the former president has faced criminal charges.
But could the former president, who remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, assume the Oval Office again if convicted of the alleged crimes? In short, yes.
University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard L. Hasen – one of the country’s leading experts on election law – said Trump still has a path to serving as president should he win reelection in 2024.
“The Constitution has very few requirements to serve as President, such as being at least 35 years of age. It does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency,” he said in an email to CNN.
Could a president serve from prison? That’s less clear.
“How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question,” Hasen said.
Key things to know about the charges Trump is facing over the obstruction of an official proceeding
From CNN's Zachary B. Wolf
Supporters of President Donald Trump participate in a rally in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021. John Minchillo/AP
Some of the charges former President Donald Trump is facing for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election are tied to a very specific thing: “conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding” and “obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.”
The official proceeding is the counting of electoral votes in the House chamber, which by law is supposed to occur on January 6 after every presidential election. The ceremonial process is governed by the Electoral Count Act, first passed in 1887 in the wake of the contested election of 1876, which also ripped the country apart.
Fast forward to January 2021 and Trump refusing to accept his election loss.
There were also friendly lawmakers promising to object to the inclusion of electoral votes from key states he lost, claiming election fraud that didn't happen. Trump openly called on his vice president, Mike Pence, to act unilaterally to reject those electors. He hoped friendly legislatures would overrule voters and sub in slates of fake electors his campaign had helped coordinate
That, in a nutshell, was the plan to overturn the 2020 election.
One of the things both political parties — Republicans and Democrats — have agreed on in the years since the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol is that there should be no question that the vice president's role is nothing but ceremonial.
In December 2022, Congress passed the first legislative response to January 6 through the Electoral Count Reform Act.
The act also raised the threshold to make it harder for lawmakers to force votes attempting to overturn a state’s certified result. Additionally, it includes provisions that would prevent efforts to pass along fake electors to Congress.
The judge assigned to Trump's case is no stranger to January 6 litigation
From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz and Marshall Cohen
District Judge Tanya Chutkan. From the Administrative Office of the US Courts
District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who's assigned to preside over former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington, DC, has repeatedly spoken out in very strong terms against the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and disrupt the transfer of power.
In November 2021, Chutkan forcefully rejected Trump’s attempts to block the House select committee investigating January 6 from accessing more than 700 pages of records from his White House.
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling.
Chutkan has been outspoken about the riot at several sentencing hearings – calling the violence an assault on American democracy and warning of future danger from political violence – and has repeatedly gone over what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.
At a December 2021 sentencing hearing, she looked ahead to the 2024 election, saying that “every day we are hearing about reports of anti-democratic factions, people plotting potential violence in 2024."
“It has to be made clear that trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, assaulting law enforcement, is going to be met with certain punishment,” she said.
Chutkan has even tacitly referenced Trump during criminal sentencings, saying to one rioter that he “did not go to the United States Capitol out of any love for our country. … He went for one man.”
At a sentencing hearing on October 4, 2021, she acknowledged the nationwide attention on the Capitol riot cases.
"The country is watching to see what the consequences are for something that has not ever happened in the country before,” she said, adding that the January 6 rioters “soiled and defaced the halls of the Capitol and showed their contempt for the rule of law."
At that same hearing, she also rejected comparisons between January 6 and the 2020 protests against racial inequality.
"To compare the actions of people around the country protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and downplays the very real danger that the crowd on January 6 posed to our democracy,” she said.
Trump faces criminal charges in 2020 election investigation. Here's what we learned from the indictment
From CNN staff
The indictment against former President Donald Trump charging him by the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is photographed Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, DC. Rebecca Wright/CNN
Former President Donald Trump is facing criminal charges over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and stay in office.
The indictment, which was handed down and unsealed Tuesday, describes the plot to overturn the 2020 election which culminated in the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Even before that, Trump engaged in a pressure campaign on state election workers, lawmakers and others, the indictment said.
As part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged with:
Conspiracy to defraud the United States
Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
Conspiracy against rights
Here’s what else we learned today:
Co-conspirators: Six co-conspirators are included in the indictment. In the documents, they are not named because they have not been charged with any crimes, but based on quotes in the indictment and other context, CNN can identify five of the six. Those include former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell as well as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.
January 6 insurrection: Trump and co-conspirators “exploited” the January 6 attack by continuing efforts to convince members of Congress to delay the certification of the election that day, the indictment alleges. Smith, in public remarks Tuesday, called the insurrection an “unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy" that was “fueled by lies” told by the former president.
Calls during the insurrection: In a phone call the evening of the riot, Trump refused a request from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to withdraw his objections and allow for Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, the indictment said. It also describes phone calls that Co-Conspirator 1 — who appears, based on the description, to be Giuliani — made to members of Congress that evening asking senators to "object to every state."
Knowingly spreading lies: According to the indictment, prosecutors said that Trump knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and voting machines allegedly switching votes — despite state and federal officials telling the former president the claims were wrong. The indictment said Trump continued to repeat these claims for months despite being told and knowing they were false.
Fake electors: Trump and his co-conspirators effectively tricked individuals from seven targeted states into creating and submitting certificates asserting they were legitimate electors, the indictment said. The goal was to create a “fake controversy” at the certification proceeding on December 14, 2020, and position the vice president "to supplant legitimate electors” with Trump’s fake ones.
Pressure on elected officials: Trump “lied” to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to induce him” to overturn the election, prosecutors said. The indictment also highlights how Trump “disparaged” election workers and “raised allegations” of voter fraud that had already been debunked by Georgia officials.
Connection to January 6 rioters: Two of the counts Trump is facing are brought under provisions included in a federal witness tampering statute that has also been used to prosecute some of the rioters who breached the Capitol. The judge assigned Trump's case, US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, is known for being among the harshest sentencers in the January 6 Capitol riot cases.
Reaction: Leaders in Congress are so far split along partisan lines in their reaction to Trump’s indictment. Lawmakers loyal to Trump have released statements defending him and attacking the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the special counsel and his team "have followed the facts and the law." The White House declined to comment, according to a spokesperson.
What happens next: Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday afternoon. Smith said his office will seek a speedy trial. The legal process is also already underway in two other cases in which the former president faces criminal charges.
1 hr 3 min ago
The latest indictment alleges Trump's most serious betrayal of his constitutional duties
The latest case against Trump strikes at what's seen as his most serious betrayal of constitutional duties, when his attempts to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election undermined the long-held American tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.
For two months leading up to the attack, Trump had engaged in an unprecedented pressure campaign aimed at state election workers and lawmakers in a handful of battleground states, as well as Justice Department officials and even Trump’s own vice president to persuade them to throw out the 2020 results.
Smith's move to indict the former president while he is running for a second term in the White House will test whether the criminal justice system can be used to hold Trump to account for his post-election conduct, after a House impeachment of the former president failed in the Senate in February 2021.
The indictment marks the second time in two months that Smith has brought charges against Trump. In June, Trump was charged with retention of classified documents and conspiring with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys. And in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on state charges of falsifying business records.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in both of the prior cases — and is likely to do so again when he’s arraigned on the latest charges.
Trump’s March indictment marked the first time in US history that a former president had faced criminal charges. Now there are three separate, concurrent cases where the president is facing criminal allegations – which are all going to play out as Trump seeks to return to the White House in 2024 following his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
The former president was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Read the full indictment here.
Trump is scheduled to appear at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse on Thursday. Smith said his office will seek a speedy trial and called January 6 an "unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy."
In this June 2019 photo, then-President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with advisors about fentanyl in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges related to 2020 election subversion, a stunning third time this year that the former president has faced criminal charges.
But could the former president, who remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, assume the Oval Office again if convicted of the alleged crimes? In short, yes.
University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard L. Hasen – one of the country’s leading experts on election law – said Trump still has a path to serving as president should he win reelection in 2024.
“The Constitution has very few requirements to serve as President, such as being at least 35 years of age. It does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency,” he said in an email to CNN.
Could a president serve from prison? That’s less clear.
“How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question,” Hasen said.
Supporters of President Donald Trump participate in a rally in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021. John Minchillo/AP
Some of the charges former President Donald Trump is facing for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election are tied to a very specific thing: “conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding” and “obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.”
The official proceeding is the counting of electoral votes in the House chamber, which by law is supposed to occur on January 6 after every presidential election. The ceremonial process is governed by the Electoral Count Act, first passed in 1887 in the wake of the contested election of 1876, which also ripped the country apart.
Fast forward to January 2021 and Trump refusing to accept his election loss.
There were also friendly lawmakers promising to object to the inclusion of electoral votes from key states he lost, claiming election fraud that didn't happen. Trump openly called on his vice president, Mike Pence, to act unilaterally to reject those electors. He hoped friendly legislatures would overrule voters and sub in slates of fake electors his campaign had helped coordinate
That, in a nutshell, was the plan to overturn the 2020 election.
One of the things both political parties — Republicans and Democrats — have agreed on in the years since the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol is that there should be no question that the vice president's role is nothing but ceremonial.
In December 2022, Congress passed the first legislative response to January 6 through the Electoral Count Reform Act.
The act also raised the threshold to make it harder for lawmakers to force votes attempting to overturn a state’s certified result. Additionally, it includes provisions that would prevent efforts to pass along fake electors to Congress.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan. From the Administrative Office of the US Courts
District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who's assigned to preside over former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in Washington, DC, has repeatedly spoken out in very strong terms against the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and disrupt the transfer of power.
In November 2021, Chutkan forcefully rejected Trump’s attempts to block the House select committee investigating January 6 from accessing more than 700 pages of records from his White House.
“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling.
Chutkan has been outspoken about the riot at several sentencing hearings – calling the violence an assault on American democracy and warning of future danger from political violence – and has repeatedly gone over what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.
At a December 2021 sentencing hearing, she looked ahead to the 2024 election, saying that “every day we are hearing about reports of anti-democratic factions, people plotting potential violence in 2024."
“It has to be made clear that trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, assaulting law enforcement, is going to be met with certain punishment,” she said.
Chutkan has even tacitly referenced Trump during criminal sentencings, saying to one rioter that he “did not go to the United States Capitol out of any love for our country. … He went for one man.”
At a sentencing hearing on October 4, 2021, she acknowledged the nationwide attention on the Capitol riot cases.
"The country is watching to see what the consequences are for something that has not ever happened in the country before,” she said, adding that the January 6 rioters “soiled and defaced the halls of the Capitol and showed their contempt for the rule of law."
At that same hearing, she also rejected comparisons between January 6 and the 2020 protests against racial inequality.
"To compare the actions of people around the country protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and downplays the very real danger that the crowd on January 6 posed to our democracy,” she said.
The indictment against former President Donald Trump charging him by the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is photographed Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, DC. Rebecca Wright/CNN
Former President Donald Trump is facing criminal charges over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and stay in office.
The indictment, which was handed down and unsealed Tuesday, describes the plot to overturn the 2020 election which culminated in the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Even before that, Trump engaged in a pressure campaign on state election workers, lawmakers and others, the indictment said.
As part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, Trump was charged with:
Conspiracy to defraud the United States
Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
Conspiracy against rights
Here’s what else we learned today:
Co-conspirators: Six co-conspirators are included in the indictment. In the documents, they are not named because they have not been charged with any crimes, but based on quotes in the indictment and other context, CNN can identify five of the six. Those include former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell as well as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.
January 6 insurrection: Trump and co-conspirators “exploited” the January 6 attack by continuing efforts to convince members of Congress to delay the certification of the election that day, the indictment alleges. Smith, in public remarks Tuesday, called the insurrection an “unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy" that was “fueled by lies” told by the former president.
Calls during the insurrection: In a phone call the evening of the riot, Trump refused a request from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to withdraw his objections and allow for Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, the indictment said. It also describes phone calls that Co-Conspirator 1 — who appears, based on the description, to be Giuliani — made to members of Congress that evening asking senators to "object to every state."
Knowingly spreading lies: According to the indictment, prosecutors said that Trump knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and voting machines allegedly switching votes — despite state and federal officials telling the former president the claims were wrong. The indictment said Trump continued to repeat these claims for months despite being told and knowing they were false.
Fake electors: Trump and his co-conspirators effectively tricked individuals from seven targeted states into creating and submitting certificates asserting they were legitimate electors, the indictment said. The goal was to create a “fake controversy” at the certification proceeding on December 14, 2020, and position the vice president "to supplant legitimate electors” with Trump’s fake ones.
Pressure on elected officials: Trump “lied” to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to induce him” to overturn the election, prosecutors said. The indictment also highlights how Trump “disparaged” election workers and “raised allegations” of voter fraud that had already been debunked by Georgia officials.
Connection to January 6 rioters: Two of the counts Trump is facing are brought under provisions included in a federal witness tampering statute that has also been used to prosecute some of the rioters who breached the Capitol. The judge assigned Trump's case, US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, is known for being among the harshest sentencers in the January 6 Capitol riot cases.
Reaction: Leaders in Congress are so far split along partisan lines in their reaction to Trump’s indictment. Lawmakers loyal to Trump have released statements defending him and attacking the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the special counsel and his team "have followed the facts and the law." The White House declined to comment, according to a spokesperson.
What happens next: Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday afternoon. Smith said his office will seek a speedy trial. The legal process is also already underway in two other cases in which the former president faces criminal charges.
The latest case against Trump strikes at what's seen as his most serious betrayal of constitutional duties, when his attempts to remain in the White House after losing the 2020 election undermined the long-held American tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power.
For two months leading up to the attack, Trump had engaged in an unprecedented pressure campaign aimed at state election workers and lawmakers in a handful of battleground states, as well as Justice Department officials and even Trump’s own vice president to persuade them to throw out the 2020 results.
Smith's move to indict the former president while he is running for a second term in the White House will test whether the criminal justice system can be used to hold Trump to account for his post-election conduct, after a House impeachment of the former president failed in the Senate in February 2021.
The indictment marks the second time in two months that Smith has brought charges against Trump. In June, Trump was charged with retention of classified documents and conspiring with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys. And in March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on state charges of falsifying business records.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in both of the prior cases — and is likely to do so again when he’s arraigned on the latest charges.
Trump’s March indictment marked the first time in US history that a former president had faced criminal charges. Now there are three separate, concurrent cases where the president is facing criminal allegations – which are all going to play out as Trump seeks to return to the White House in 2024 following his loss to Joe Biden in 2020.
