Former President Trump’s lawyers will have to defeat more than three dozen charges to assure Mr. Trump stays out of prison in a historic federal case that threatens to hobble his bid for a second White House term.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who announced 37 charges against Mr. Trump related to his handling of classified documents, said his office will seek a speedy trial in the Southern District of Florida, where Mr. Trump will surrender and be formally charged on Tuesday.

The timing of the trial could put Mr. Trump, the first former president ever to face federal charges, in a courtroom at the height of the 2024 presidential campaign, in which he is currently the leading GOP candidate to face off against President Biden.

If he’s convicted on any of the charges, former federal prosecutor Neama Rhamani said,  “He could get some jail time,” although the judge could sentence him to probation. 

A conviction on any of the 37 counts would threaten to put Mr. Trump in federal prison for 10 to 20 years.

Mr. Trump is refuting the charges by federal prosecutors who said the former president deliberately and carelessly retained batches of classified documents and enlisted a key aide, Walt Nauta, who was also indicted, to move them around his Mar-a-Lago estate.  

The president issued a video statement proclaiming his innocence and calling the indictment “election interference”  by his political opponents fearful of his lead in the polls over Mr. Biden. 

“They figured the way they’re going to stop us is by using what’s called warfare, and that is what this is, warfare for the law,” he said.

Mr. Trump said he plans to defeat the charges “very quickly,” but legal experts say a trial isn’t likely to start until 2024 and perhaps not until the summer before the November election.

If Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee, the trial could sideline him in a South Florida courtroom at a critical time in the general election campaign.
“This type of case is not going to take days, it’s going to be weeks,” Mr. Rhamani said.

Mr. Trump also could be benched from the campaign trail because of other court cases. 

He was indicted in April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on 34 counts involving the former president’s alleged payment of hush money to two adult performers and a doorman ahead of the 2016 election. 

That trial is scheduled for March 25, which is three weeks after the Super Tuesday primary contest.

Mr. Trump’s legal entanglements are likely to worsen later this summer when a Georgia grand jury is expected to conclude its investigation into whether Mr. Trump interfered in the state’s 2020 presidential election.

If criminal charges are filed against Mr. Trump by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Mr. Trump could face more time in a courtroom as he pursues another presidential term.

Mr. Trumps, in his video message following the latest indictment, stopped short of acknowledging the impact the criminal charges are having on his re-election bid. But he said, “It would be wonderful if we could devote our full time to making America great again.” 

The indictment that was unsealed on June 9 accuses Mr. Trump of conspiring with Mr. Nauta to mislead investigators about whether they had turned over the documents after the Department of Justice requested he surrender them. Mr. Trump at one point suggested to his lawyers that they tell investigators they no longer had any classified documents. 

“That’s pretty bad stuff,” Mr. Rhamani said. “That shows that he knew that he was breaking the law.”

The material Mr. Trump took to Mar-a-Lago when he left the White House in January 2021 included nuclear secrets and papers on foreign weapons systems and, according to the indictment, Trump waved around top secret military plans to people without proper security clearance.

The indictment accuses Mr. Trump of conspiring with Mr. Nauta to move boxes with sensitive documents around the estate — part of which operates as a social club for outside guests — and photos included in the indictment show boxes of classified material piled on a stage in Mar-a-Lago and spilled onto the floor in another room.

Mr. Rhamani called the evidence presented in the indictment “pretty compelling stuff,” and said the inclusion of photos is unusual.

“This indictment was meant for public consumption,” he said. “There’s a reason the special counsel encouraged people to read it.”

Mr. Trump’s supporters continue to side with the former president and accuse the Justice Department of politically targeting him, while pollsters predict much of Mr. Trump’s loyal base won’t budge from their support.

If the case is delayed past the November election, the court of public opinion may end up deciding the case and if Mr. Trump is elected president again, Mr. Rhamani said, “the case goes away.”

Many Republican voters believe Mr. Trump has been unfairly targeted by the federal government. The latest indictment may only fuel more of that sentiment.

James Bopp Jr., an attorney who specializes in campaign finance law, said the indictment shows a double standard between how the Justice Department is handling the case against Mr. Trump compared to its probe into whether President Biden mishandled classified documents. 
“The Justice Department is not applying the law equally,” he said.

Mr. Bopp noted that Mar-a-Lago was a secure facility protected by Secret Service, while Mr. Biden was discovered to have stored classified documents in a closet at an office building and in the garage at his Wilmington home.

Another key difference, Mr. Bopp noted, was that, as president, Mr. Trump had the authority to declassify documents, while the materials found in Mr. Biden’s possession dated back to his time in the Senate and when he was vice president during the Obama administration. Mr. Biden would not have had the authority to declassify documents in those positions. 

“Biden basically stole documents from a secured facility and had no right to declassify them. He had no right to the documents and no right to declassify them. On the face of it, what Biden has done is way worse than even the furthest reaches of what Trump has done,” he said. 

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.