Pending legal cases against Former President Donald Trump are expected to come to a head this year, as the ex-president faces the possibility of four criminal trials alongside multiple civil cases—though the ex-president’s federal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election has already been delayed, and it’s unclear how many cases will go to trial before voters go to the polls.
Former President Donald Trump gestures as he wraps up a campaign event on December 19 in Waterloo, ... [+]
Trump’s January was already filled with a number of court appearances, as closing arguments took place in the civil fraud trial against him and his company, and he went to trial against writer E. Jean Carroll in her defamation case against him—resulting in a jury ordering Trump to pay her $83.3 million.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump’s challenge of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that disqualified him from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, which stands to have ramifications nationwide as voters in numerous other states also try to kick Trump off the ballot.
Trump was scheduled to go to trial in the federal criminal case against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election, brought by special counsel Jack Smith—but the case has gotten delayed waiting for a federal appeals court to weigh in on Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges, and it was removed from the court’s calendar, with presiding Judge Tanya Chutkan now scheduled to oversee other trials starting on March 18 and April 2.
Trial is scheduled to start in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal case against Trump in state court, which accuses him of falsifying business records in conjunction with “hush-money” payments made to women during his 2016 campaign—and is so far expected to proceed as scheduled.
Trump is slated to go to trial in the federal criminal case against him for allegedly mishandling White House documents that he brought back to Mar-A-Lago, though U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has said she’ll review Trump’s request to push back the trial date at a hearing in March, and the judge has already pushed back several deadlines, which likely makes it harder for the trial to proceed on time.
Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis has requested this as the trial start date in her criminal case against Trump and his allies for trying to overturn the 2020 election—but it’s unclear whether it actually will be, as no final trial dates have yet been set.
The cases against Trump carry the possibility of significant penalties against the former president, including prison time. Trump could be sentenced to up to 717.5 years in prison if he were convicted of every criminal count against him and given the maximum punishment, though that’s unlikely to happen. He could also be fined up to $11.2 million in the criminal cases against him, plus whatever damages he’s ordered to pay in civil cases. The ex-president also faces more legal challenges in which a trial date hasn’t been set yet, with civil lawsuits moving forward from Capitol police officers and Democratic lawmakers that seek to hold Trump liable for Jan. 6 and lawsuits still pending across the country that challenge Trump’s candidacy under the 14th Amendment.
How the pending cases will affect the 2024 election. It’s still hard to say how the Supreme Court could rule on the 14th Amendment issue—and whether their ruling would only affect Colorado or other states—and it’s still hard to predict how many of Trump’s criminal cases will be decided before either the presidential primary wraps up this summer or the November general election. The federal election case can only move forward once the federal appeals court rules on Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges—though once it does, the trial is expected to be further delayed by Trump appealing that ruling to the Supreme Court. Trump has tried to delay the trials against him until after the 2024 election, particularly given that in the federal cases against him, getting reelected would mean he could appoint prosecutors willing to drop the charges against him. Even if Trump does get convicted before the election, it still wouldn’t necessarily thwart his chances of becoming president, as there’s nothing in the Constitution that bars convicted felons from being in the White House—though recent polling suggests swing voters could be dissuaded from voting for him.
Trump has strongly denied the charges and civil allegations against him, pleading not guilty to the criminal charges against him and declaring cases against him to be a “witch hunt” designed to harm his presidential candidacy. The ex-president has also continued to push false claims of election fraud despite facing repercussions for trying to overturn the 2020 election, claiming on Truth Social in January he “did nothing wrong” and was “bringing to light the fact that the Election was, without question, Rigged and Stolen.”
56%. That’s the share of U.S. adults who believe Trump is “probably guilty” of a criminal conspiracy stemming from his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, according to a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll released in January. That includes 88% of Democrats but only 18% of Republicans. A smaller 46% believe Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack should disqualify him from the presidency, as the 14th Amendment cases against him argue.
Trump faces 91 total criminal charges in the four criminal cases against him, which were all brought in 2023 as yearslong investigations into the ex-president wrapped up and ended with indictments. Trump’s pending legal cases come after the ex-president already began to face legal consequences in 2023, including being found liable for defaming and sexually abusing Carroll, who alleges Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. Though he hasn’t issued his final verdict yet in Trump’s civil fraud trial, New York Judge Arthur Engoron also ruled ahead of the trial that Trump and his co-defendants—including his sons—are liable for fraud because they misstating the value of their assets on financial documents, which the state alleges was done to obtain more favorable business deals and reflect a higher net worth for Trump. Engoron ordered Trump’s business certificates to be canceled as part of that ruling, though an appeals court has put that on hold while the order gets appealed.
Trump Fraud Trial: Here’s What We Learned From Months Of Testimony As Case Nears End (Forbes)
Court Rules ‘Presidential Immunity’ Doesn’t Get Trump Out Of Jan. 6 Allegations—Again (Forbes)
Trump’s Total Charges Could Result In More Than 700 Years In Prison—Here's Why That's So Unlikely (Forbes)
Here’s How Much Trump’s Four Indictments Could Cost Him In Fines If He’s Convicted (Forbes)