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Former President Donald Trump is going into 2024 with the prospect of four criminal trials and a major lawsuit. If he is elected president in November, he may be able to cancel or postpone some of them. If not, it's possible that he will become the first former president to serve prison time.
Here are the main cases and how they might play out:
Election Interference Case, Washington, D.C.
Trump was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.
His best way out is to seek presidential immunity, but on December 10, Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith went to the U.S. Supreme Court looking for an answer, denying Trump months of legal challenges through the courts.
The Supreme Court seems receptive to hearing the case. It said the day after Smith's petition that it would expedite the process of deciding whether to take it. It next meets in early January to decide which cases to take and Trump's presidential immunity is likely to be top of the agenda.
With Trump's trial due to begin on March 4, that is cutting it very tight.
New York law professor Stephen Gillers told Newsweek that the Supreme Court might take the case before the Washington D.C. Appeal Court decides the immunity issue.
"Or it might wait until the end of the trial and the appeal of any conviction. In either event, I think the final ruling on the immunity issue will be that there is no carte blanche immunity for everything the president does," he said.
"The proof at the trial might support immunity for some of Trump's conduct but not for other conduct. We can't know the answers until we have a trial and see what the proof is. But the big point is there is no categorical immunity for everything a president does. It depends on what he did and we can't know what he did without a trial."
Newsweek sought email comment about Trump's pending cases from his attorney.
New York Fraud Trial
Trump has already lost a portion of the New York attorney general's case against him for fraudulent evaluation of Trump properties, and some of the Trump companies have lost their legal right to trade.
Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James must file closing briefs in the case by January 5, with closing arguments on January 11. Judge Arthur Engoron will then decide on the rest of the case plus the fines he is expected to impose on Trump for the part of the case that the former president has already lost.
Sparring between Trump and Engoron has been ongoing for months. Engoron has twice fined Trump for violating a gag order. The second time, he forced Trump to take the stand and denounced his behavior. While on the witness stand, Trump told Engoron he was among the "Trump haters" trying to entangle him in legal cases.
When Trump gave direct evidence in the case, Engoron snapped that he was "making speeches" and that he would dismiss him as a witness if it didn't stop.
Trump decided this month not to testify for the defense.
Expect a massive fine of tens of millions of dollars or even hundreds of millions of dollars when the case ends in January or February.
Engoron may also cancel the business certificates of more Trump companies and may force the sale of many Trump properties, including Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and Trump Tower in Manhattan.
E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case
A jury has already awarded retired journalist E. Jean Carroll $5 million after finding that Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s and then defamed her character after she filed a case against him.
After he lost the case, Trump made further comments about her and she is again suing him for defamation and the second trial opens on January 16.
As this is the second defamation case, we can expect very heavy punitive damages if the jury rules against Trump.
Florida Classified Documents Case
Trump pleaded not guilty in June to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials he took from the White House and stored in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. In August, Trump pleaded not guilty to three additional felony charges in the case.
Because the case involves highly sensitive documents, some of them involving national security, Judge Aileen Cannon has had to put elaborate security protocols in place that have delayed the trial by months.
Prosecutor Jack Smith and his team have repeatedly accused Trump's lawyers of exploiting the extra security measures to drag out the trial as long as possible.
For example, the DOJ gave both sides special highly secure laptops on which to write legal briefs that reference the contents of the classified documents. Trump's lawyers complained that they never received their laptops. Smith angrily responded in a court briefing that the Trump lawyers had received their laptops months earlier and had used them to write briefs for the court.
Both sides also have special secure rooms in Miami in which to view classified documents and some documents are so sensitive that they have to be couriered to the secure rooms by "members of the intelligence community," according to court filings.
All of this means that Cannon has had to delay pre-trial hearings and has said she will arrange a new schedule in 2024. It is highly unlikely that she will keep to the scheduled May 2024 start of the trial and the case could drag on for many more months after that.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, has also set the trial in Fort Pierce, Florida, in St. Lucie County, which Trump won 50 percent to 49 percent in the 2020 election.
Trump is in a far better position in the Florida case than he is in the election fraud case in Washington and we might not see a result in this case before the November election.
Georgia Election Fraud Case
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was the first district attorney to bring charges against Trump. An indictment unsealed in August accused Trump and 18 others—including Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, former Georgia Republican Chairman David Shafer and former Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro—of a large-scale conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.
Of the 19 indicted, four, including Chesebro, have accepted plea deals and agreed to testify if needed. Perhaps the most damaging is Sidney Powell, an attorney and Trump loyalist who was present for key meetings after the 2020 presidential election.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts he faces. With Fulton County voting 72 percent for Biden and 26 percent Trump in 2020, Trump might not find the jury he wants in this overwhelmingly Democratic county.
If he has one light of hope, prosecutors are seeking an August 2024 trial date and, as Willis has said, the trial may continue on past Inauguration Day in January 2025. That may give Trump legal permission to delay the case until he is out of office.
If that doesn't succeed, the case could be very difficult for Trump. Three of the four accused who have agreed to testify are attorneys, and prosecutors have a recording of Trump's phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021, when he seeks an extra 11,780 votes to win the state.
Stormy Daniels Hush Money Payments
The least talked-about of the Trump indictments has the potential to be the most embarrassing.
Trump was indicted in April on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
While refusing to move the case to federal court in July, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein noted in a 25-page decision: "The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the president – a cover-up of an embarrassing event.
"Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President's official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president's official duties."
The case is due to go on trial in March, the same month that Trump's election fraud case in Washington is due to begin.
As the E. Jean Carroll defamation case has shown, Trump might not find favor with a Manhattan jury when it goes to trial.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more