A New York state judge confirmed Thursday that former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan will be the first of his four indictments to go to trial next month, as the ex-president’s criminal charges are expected to come to a head in the coming months—but other cases could face significant delays.
Former President Donald Trump attends a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court on February 15 ... [+]
Trial is scheduled to start in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal case, which accuses him of falsifying business records in conjunction with “hush-money” payments made to women during his 2016 campaign, as Judge Juan Merchan affirmed the trial start date at a hearing Thursday and denied Trump’s motions to dismiss the charges.
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.
It remains unclear when Trump’s federal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election will go to trial, after an initial March 4 trial date was delayed while Trump tries to have his charges thrown out because of “presidential immunity;” the dispute is now before the Supreme Court after lower judges ruled against Trump and the court’s handling of the case will determine when the trial begins, with legal experts at Just Security speculating it will start sometime between June and October.
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, and Willis now faces potential disqualification from the case in light of allegations involving her romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade.
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.
The start of 2024 was already filled with a number of pivotal court dates for Trump, as closing arguments took place in the civil fraud trial against him and his company, 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—and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case seeking to disqualify Trump from Colorado’s ballot under the 14th Amendment.
How the pending cases will affect the 2024 election. The Supreme Court is widely expected to rule in Trump’s favor on the 14th Amendment issue, which would keep him on the ballot in the 2024 election. The federal election case can only move forward once the Supreme Court rules, and it’s still unclear whether justices will deny Trump’s attempt to keep the case on hold—allowing the trial to get back on track—or decide to hear the dispute. If the court takes up the case and doesn’t rule swiftly, it’s possible the trial could extend through Jan. 2025, after the election is over. 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 and declaring cases to be a “witch hunt” designed to harm his presidential candidacy. He told reporters Thursday the Manhattan case was “election interference” designed to hurt him in November and argued his actions regarding the payments were “not a crime.” 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 said 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)