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 it still remains unclear if Trump could be convicted in some of the biggest cases against him before the 2024 election.
Former President Donald Trump gestures as he wraps up a campaign event on December 19 in Waterloo, ... [+]
Closing arguments will be held in the ongoing civil fraud trial against Trump and his company, with a verdict expected to come by the end of the month—which could result in the ex-president having to pay $250,000, being barred from running any New York businesses or conducting commercial real estate transactions for the next five years.
Civil trial starts in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Trump; though Trump has already been found liable for defaming Carroll (and was ordered to pay her $5 million in a separate lawsuit), this trial will determine how much Trump has to pay in damages in this case.
Trump is slated to go to trial in New Yorkin another civil lawsuit, which accuses him and his company of defrauding plaintiffs by promoting a multi-level marketing scheme, though Trump has a pending motion to dismiss the case.
The U.S. Supreme Court is widely expected to get involved with Trump’s legal issues before the court’s term wraps up in June, including determining whether he’s “immune” from criminal charges and whether he can be disqualified from the 2024 election under the 14th Amendment for “engaging in” an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, after the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine Secretary of State ruled he should be kicked off the ballot.
Trump is scheduled to go to trial in the federal criminal case against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election—though it’s likely this date will get delayed, as the case is on pause while an appeals court, and then likely the Supreme Court, considers Trump’s request to have the charges thrown out because he allegedly has “presidential immunity.”
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.
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. The cases challenging Trump’s candidacy under the 14th Amendment are still playing out and could likely be left to the Supreme Court to determine, 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. It’s likely the Manhattan case will move forward as scheduled in March, and the federal election case will likely go to trial before the election depending on how long the appeals process over Trump’s motion to throw out the case takes—but it’s still hard to say if trials will begin in the documents or Georgia cases before the election really gets underway. 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.
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 Monday 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 Tuesday. 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 Trump’s civil fraud trial remains ongoing, 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)