EXPLAINER: The Cases Against Trump, And Why They Matter | National News

Former President Donald Trump is facing charges in four different cases that range in scope and severity, and are playing out simultaneously in four different locations – New York, Miami, the District of Columbia and Atlanta.

Trump, who is the current GOP front-runner in the 2024 presidential election, has denied wrongdoing in every case, and his legal team is maneuvering to delay the trial proceedings for as long as possible in hopes of returning the former president to the White House, where he would likely gain power to avoid prison time.

As president, Trump could try to pardon himself for federal crimes or otherwise seek to dismiss the Justice Department’s cases with “control” of the agency, his attorneys have said. And even if he is convicted ahead of the election, he may still be able to serve as president – perhaps even from prison.

Nevertheless, convictions in the cases could do damage to Trump’s White House aspirations. According to a February Reuters/Ipsos poll, about 1 in 4 Republicans and about half of independents say they would not support Trump if he were convicted of a felony crime.

In addition to the cases in which he has been indicted, prosecutors in two other ongoing criminal cases have named Trump an unindicted co-conspirator – a person who has been determined to have been involved in the events that led to criminal charges but who has not themselves been charged.

Here are the cases, explained:

Trump’s first indictment on March 30, 2023, centered around his role in reimbursing his former attorney, Michael Cohen, for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her quiet about what she says was an extramarital affair she had with Trump a decade earlier. Prosecutors charge that the hush money payment was a bid to influence the election. With the case, Trump became the first former president to be charged with a crime, and he was arraigned on April 3, 2023, in a Manhattan criminal court. The case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and is overseen by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. Merchan said he expects the trial to run roughly six weeks, meaning it could end in early June.

The former president was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for what prosecutors say was the illegal concealment of payments made as part of an elaborate “catch-and-kill” hush money scheme Trump and his associates carried out during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in a bid to influence the election.

Prosecutors on March 14 agreed to a 30-day pause in the case to allow Trump’s legal team to review a tranche of documents they had subpoenaed from the Manhattan district attorney’s office and only recently received. That has delayed the case from its scheduled start date of March 25. Jury selection began April 15, and opening statements were delivered a week later.

The prosecution spent the first weeks building a narrative that Donald Trump and his inner circle went to great lengths to conceal hush money payments made to silence claims of extramarital sexual encounters with the former president. It then turned to the paper trail, walking jurors through bank statements, invoices, emails and handwritten notes that appeared to bolster their case.

Jurisdiction: Supreme Court of the State of New York County of New York

Trial Date: In process, began on April 15

Sentence the Charges Carry: Each carries a maximum prison sentence of four years.

Subject to Presidential Pardon: No

The former president’s second indictment came on June 9, when a grand jury accused him of illegally retaining classified information after he left office, showing some of those documents to individuals without proper clearance and hatching a plan to hide the materials from officials in defiance of a federal subpoena. Trump was arraigned on June 13 at a federal courthouse in Miami, before new charges were unveiled in a superseding indictment in July. The case was brought by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and is overseen by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

Ongoing disputes between the parties – including over making a list of witnesses public – have delayed what was supposed to be a start date of May 20 for the trial. Cannon has given no indication of when the proceedings will begin and is considering a series of petitions made by Trump’s legal team for dismissal of the case. Most recently, she granted Trump’s request to postpone the deadline for an important filing that asks his defense team to list the classified documents they intend to use in the trial – a move that makes it all but certain the trial will not start until after the 2024 presidential election.

Legal experts have observed that Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, has made a handful of questionable rulings and decisions that favored the former president, including two that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed.

The indictment includes multiple counts of seven separate charges, listing 38 overlapping criminal offenses against Trump and his longtime aide Walt Nauta – 37 of which are directed at Trump.

The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal and making false statements. The additional charges, announced July 27, included another count of retention of national security information and two new obstruction of justice charges. The indictment also named the property manager of Mar-a-Lago, Carlos De Oliveira, as a new defendant in the case.

Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Sentence the Charges Carry: each carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with a maximum prison sentence of between five and 20 years.

Subject to Presidential Pardon: Yes.

A federal grand jury handed up Trump’s third indictment on Aug. 1 in connection with what prosecutors say were efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss and undermine America’s democracy. He was arraigned on Aug. 3 at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.

The case was brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and is overseen by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Chutkan initially set a March 4 date for the trial to begin but has since delayed the trial until an issue over whether Trump can use presidential immunity as a defense is resolved. On Feb. 6, a panel of three judges who serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Trump cannot invoke presidential immunity as a defense. Trump appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, and the justices on Feb. 28 agreed to consider it.

During oral arguments on April 25, conservative justices seemed sympathetic to – though not entirely accepting of – the idea that a president should enjoy at least some immunity, driven in large part by fears over cyclical retribution that would befall future presidents and prevent them from making decisive and sometimes controversial decisions required by their office. The justices acknowledged the question before them has “huge implications for the future of the presidency and the future of the country,” and focused much of their time trying to parse the difference between official acts of a president versus private acts.

It’s unclear when the justices will deliver a decision, or whether they will send it back down to the lower court to grapple with the specifics of presidential immunity. They have until the end of their term – the end of June – to do so. Most legal experts agree that the longer they wait, the more likely it is that the trial is pushed until after the election.

Trump is being charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, one count of obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and one count of conspiracy against rights.

Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Sentence the Charges Carry: each carries a maximum prison sentence of between five and 20 years.

Subject to Presidential Pardon: Yes.

Trump’s fourth indictment came late on Aug. 14, 2023, when a grand jury accused him and more than a dozen of his allies of orchestrating a massive criminal enterprise to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The former president and his co-defendants were arraigned on Sept. 6, 2023 at a courthouse in Atlanta. The case was brought by District Attorney Fani Willis and will be overseen by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee.

Trump attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro and Atlanta-based bail bondsman Scott Hall have pleaded guilty in the case and were given reduced sentences in exchange for their cooperation with prosecutors.

Willis had requested a trial date of Aug. 5, 2024, but McAfee has not yet settled on a date. The proceedings were delayed by a dispute over whether a personal romantic relationship between Willis and the special prosecutor she hired to work on the case presented a conflict of interest. McAfee ruled on March 15 that Willis could continue to prosecute the case as long as the special prosecutor was dismissed.

On May 8, the Georgia Court of Appeals announced that it will consider Trump’s appeal of a ruling that allowed Willis to stay on the case – a decision that legal experts say likely mires the case in legal limbo for months, pushing the start of the trial past the 2024 presidential election.

Of the 41 charges brought against 19 defendants in the case, Trump faced 13 charges, including a violation of the state racketeering law, or RICO, solicitation of violation of oath by public officer, conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery, conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, committing false statements and writings, conspiracy to commit filing false documents and filing false documents. McAfee on March 14 dismissed six of those charges, including three against Trump, saying that prosecutors had not provided enough detail to support them. The charges accused defendants of soliciting public officers to violate their oaths. McAfee left open the possibility that prosecutors could either reindict defendants on the charges with more detail or that they could seek permission to appeal the ruling. Trump still faces 10 counts.

Jurisdiction: Fulton County Superior Court of Georgia

Sentence the Charges Carry: each carries a maximum prison sentence of between three and 20 years.

Subject to Presidential Pardon: No.

An Arizona grand jury charged 18 allies of former President Donald Trump – 11 state Republicans and seven top aides – for what prosecutors say was a scheme to subvert the 2020 election. The names of the seven aides were redacted, but descriptions of their roles in the 58-page indictment make it clear who is involved.

The aides include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and top adviser Boris Epshteyn. Attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb, and 2020 campaign operative Mike Roman are also included.

Listed as “unindicted co-conspirators” are Trump, attorney Ken Chesebro, state Sen. Kelly Townsend, former state Rep. Mark Finchem, and former state Republican lawyer Jack Wilenchik. An unindicted co-conspirator is a person whom prosecutors have determined was involved in the events that led to criminal charges but who is not themselves facing charges.

The only names visible in the document are the 11 Republicans who posed as fake electors to certify the state’s election results. Included in that list are former Arizona Republican Chairwoman Kelli Ward, state senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, and Arizona’s RNC committeeman Tyler Bowyer.

The charges were announced by Democratic state Attorney General Kris Mayes, making her the fifth prosecutor to bring criminal charges in the expansive fake elector scheme linked to Trump. Mayes launched the investigation last year and the grand jury issued subpoenas in March of this year to the fake electors and other Trump associates.

Mayes underscored the gravity of the case in a five-minute video on April 24, saying, “Whatever their reasoning was, the plot to violate the law must be answered for, and I was elected to uphold the law of this state.”

“The scheme, had it succeeded, would have deprived Arizona’s voters of their right to have their votes counted for their chosen president. It effectively would have made their right to vote meaningless.”

The grand jury issued a nine-count indictment that alleges the fake electors and Trump aides engaged in a conspiracy with the goal of “preventing the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”

Each of the 11 electors is charged with counts including conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices, and six counts of forgery. Each of the nine counts is a felony and carries the potential for prison time. However, Arizona state laws allow for a reduction in sentences for those with no criminal history.

Jurisdiction: Superior Court of the State of Arizona for the county of Maricopa

Sentence the Charges Carry: Each count is a felony and carries a standard sentence of five years in prison

Subject to Presidential Pardon: No

Former President Donald Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani were named as unindicted co-conspirators in Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s case against fake electors in the state.

Nessel already charged 16 Republicans last year for their roles in attempting to subvert the 2020 election by falsely certifying that Trump won the state’s election instead of President Joe Biden.

Trump’s legal connection to the case only emerged during a hearing on April 25. Howard Shock, a special agent for Nessel’s office who was being cross-examined, replied “yes” when asked if Trump, Meadows and Giuliani were “unindicted co-conspirators.”

Shock also said yes when former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, former Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox and other Michigan Republicans, including former state House Speaker Tom Leonard, his wife, Jenell Leonard, and GOP consultant and legal adviser to Cox Stu Sandler, were named.

The Republicans already charged by Nessel’s office were charged with forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The forgery-related charges are each punishable with up to 14 years in prison and the election law forgery charges are each punishable with up to five years in prison.

Initially, 16 people were charged but that total is now 15 after James Renner reached a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, leading to his charges being dropped. All 15 have pleaded not guilty.

Preliminary examinations of the six fake electors finished Wednesday. Ingham County District Judge Kristen Simmons will then decide whether Nessel’s office has presented enough evidence to send them to a jury trial. But a decision from Simmons won’t come until after the other nine have their examinations. Those proceedings are scheduled to end in early June, with the first hearings set for May 28.

Jurisdiction: Michigan District Court

Sentence the Charges Carry: The forgery-related charges are each punishable with up to 14 years in prison and the election law forgery charges are each punishable with up to five years in prison.

Subject to Presidential Pardon: No