RUNNING FOR the American presidency is a full-time job. “There was essentially no day or night” from the first presidential debate in September 1976 to election day, griped James Fallows, now a journalist, who worked on Jimmy Carter’s campaign. Donald Trump, if he wins the Republican Party’s nomination, as seems likely, will have to combine that gruelling endeavour with his role as a defendant in four criminal trials. In all he faces 91 felony charges, from falsifying business records to conspiring to defraud the country. His trials will all probably be scheduled well before election day. So far, Mr Trump, who denies all the charges, has reconciled the roles of defendant and candidate by making his campaign largely about the cases against him. He rallies Republican support with his claims that he is the victim of a political witch-hunt. Whether most American voters will agree should Mr Trump face off against President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is uncertain. The revelations that emerge in court may well shape the race. These are the prosecutions that await the former president.
Election interference in Georgia
Jurisdiction: State—Fulton County, Georgia
Trial date: October 23rd 2023 (requested by the prosecution)
In the telling of Fani Willis, the prosecutor, Mr Trump was the boss of a criminal “enterprise” with one job: to change the result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, a state he lost. On August 14th this year Ms Willis indicted Mr Trump on charges including racketeering. She used a statute designed to target the mafia to tie the 19 co-defendants together.
Their alleged offences vary: some defendants, known as the “fake electors”, are said to have submitted false paperwork to Congress claiming that Mr Trump had won Georgia. Others allegedly appealed to the state’s officials, urging them to overturn Mr Biden’s victory. Yet others reputedly harassed election workers and stole voting data. Ms Willis claims that Mr Trump unified and motivated their illegal acts. Central to the case will be a phone call from January 2021: in it, the then-president urged Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes”—the exact number that he needed to win the state.
Election interference
Jurisdiction: Federal (Washington, DC)
Trial date: March 4th 2024
Jack Smith’s indictment, alleging that Mr Trump tried to steal the 2020 presidential election, is the gravest case against the former president. Mr Smith, though appointed by Merrick Garland, America’s attorney-general, is an independent special prosecutor. That status is supposed to ensure that he has no political agenda, though of course Mr Trump’s supporters don’t accept that. On August 1st this year Mr Smith charged Mr Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing an official proceeding (Congress’s certification of the electoral-college vote in favour of Mr Biden) and conspiring to deprive Americans of their right to have their votes counted. The indictment accuses Mr Trump of pulling the strings of fake electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin; leaning on the Department of Justice and the vice-president, Mike Pence, to carry out his “criminal scheme”; and exploiting the violence at the Capitol on January 6th 2021 to encourage lawmakers to delay certifying the vote.
In challenging the allegations, Mr Trump’s lawyers will probably cite his First Amendment right to free speech. The indictment opens by acknowledging that right, and Mr Trump’s right to formally contest the results of an election. But his lies, it goes on to allege, created a foundation of mistrust upon which his criminal conspiracies were built.
Falsifying business records
Jurisdiction: Local—New York City, New York
Trial date: March 25th 2024
In March 2023 Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s top prosecutor, brought the first-ever criminal indictment against a former president. He charged Mr Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels. On the eve of the presidential election in 2016 she threatened to go public about sleeping with Mr Trump. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid her off—and later pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations in connection with the payment. Mr Trump is accused of covering up his reimbursements to Mr Cohen by describing them as payments for legal services.
Falsifying business records is not a felony unless it furthers another crime. Mr Bragg did not specify the additional crime in his indictment, perhaps because the clearest contender—a federal election-law violation—is not obviously within his power as a local district attorney to prosecute. So far Mr Trump’s lawyers have failed in their efforts to move the case to a federal court.
Mishandling classified documents
Jurisdiction: Federal (Florida)
Trial date: May 20th 2024
On June 13th this year, in a separate case brought by Mr Smith, Mr Trump was arraigned in a court in Florida on 37 charges in connection with his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House. The prosecutor brought most of the charges under the Espionage Act of 1917, which makes it a crime to hold secret government documents without authorisation. The former president is said to have retained records about America’s nuclear-weapons programme and other countries’ military capabilities. Mr Trump is also accused of obstructing investigators. On July 27th the prosecutors brought new charges, accusing him of attempting to destroy evidence.
They allege that the former president was aware that retaining and leaking secret papers was a serious crime; that he stashed them in insecure places and refused an order to hand them over; and that he bragged about their contents. The indictment claims that the documents were boxed up in various locations at Mar-a-Lago, the private club in Florida where Mr Trump lives. These include a ballroom, a shower and a storage room that the public could get to from the club’s pool patio.
Even more trials
There are civil trials, too. New York state is suing the Trump Organisation for fraud: Mr Trump and his two adult sons are accused of inflating their net worth in statements to lenders and insurance companies. That trial is due to start on October 2nd this year. In May a jury in Manhattan found Mr Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, an author, in the 1990s, and of later defaming her. On September 6th a judge ruled that Mr Trump was liable in a second defamation trial, based in part on odious comments he made about Ms Carroll in a town hall on CNN in May. A jury is set to decide damages on January 15th 2024. The first civil trial did little to sway voters who favour Mr Trump. The full effects of the criminal ones remain to be seen. Thus far they have bolstered his popularity among Republicans. ■
