- If Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidency, it could help him in his four criminal cases.
- “Setting politics aside, there is a lot at stake legally for Trump,” one legal expert said.
- Trump has promised to immediately fire the special prosecutor who has brought two federal cases against him.
Not only is the presidency on the line for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, but so are his four criminal indictments.
Winning would largely free the former president for the foreseeable future from dealing with his criminal cases. Losing to Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris means he must face these cases head-on.
“Setting politics aside, there is a lot at stake legally for Trump” in the November 5 election, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Business Insider.
Here’s what will happen with Trump’s four criminal cases — two federal and two state — if he wins or loses this year’s presidency.
The New York hush-money case
Whether Trump wins or loses the election, he will have a mandatory November 26 Manhattan sentencing date on his calendar.
Trump, the first US president convicted of a crime, faces anywhere from zero to four years in jail for his May conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his $130,000 hush-money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
There is some chance that date will be delayed. Trump has promised to fight his indictment and conviction in New York’s appellate courts. He will argue that the evidence in the case includes acts that were done in his official role as president — evidence that is barred under July’s landmark US Supreme Court presidential immunity decision.
Once he’s sentenced, experts say more appeals could keep even a jail sentence on hold for years — though a jail sentence is highly unlikely, a quartet of former New York judges previously told BI.
Winning the presidency would extend things even further, as Trump could argue he’s too busy running the country to tend to his personal legal issues.
Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf said it’s likely that if Trump won back the White House, he would immediately file court papers to delay the sentencing until he is no longer president.
Rahmani, the president and cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said that he does not believe Trump would be sentenced to jail “regardless of the outcome of the election.”
“Trump winning makes it logistically impossible and a certainty that he won’t receive any time,” Rahmani said.
Trump’s federal cases
Trump has two federal indictments, both brought by special counsel Jack Smith, and both eligible for a presidential pardon, though a self-pardon has never been tried.
If reelected president, Trump could ask his attorney general to fire Smith. He could also ask the courts to halt the federal prosecutions as there is long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted while in office, or attempt to pardon himself, said Dorf.
Trump said in a conservative radio interview last month that if elected, he would fire Smith “within two seconds.”
Justice Department regulations permit only firing a special counsel for good cause, but Trump could have his attorney general rescind that regulation, Dorf noted.
Firing Smith “is basically his right as president, though I would expect Smith to resign before then, just as a matter of course,” said Michel Paradis, an attorney who teaches national security and constitutional law at Columbia Law School.
“The key thing to watch would be what Jack Smith does between Election Day and January 20 to potentially protect those prosecutions from interference,” Paradis said.
“There’s not a lot he can do to make them ironclad since, at the end of the day, the president does control the Justice Department,” Paradis said.
One thing Smith may try prior to Trump taking the oath is to seek to stay both proceedings during the presidency, again on the grounds that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office, Paradis said.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to both federal indictments.
In response to a request for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “The Lyin’ Kamala Harris – Crooked Joe Biden Witch Hunts against President Trump have imploded just like their failed campaign, and should all be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s historic decision on immunity and other vital jurisprudence.”
A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The federal election interference case
If Trump loses, that does not mean Smith’s prosecution of Trump’s most serious federal case — charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election — will barrel forward at full speed.
Citizen Trump would continue to challenge the so-called election interference case on grounds of presidential immunity, experts predict.
In July, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion that provides presidents with broad protection from being prosecuted for their official acts. The opinion also bars the use of official-act evidence in any prosecution of a former president, even on charges not relating to official acts.
In August, Smith won a revised indictment that stresses that Trump is being charged for his conduct as a private, office-seeking citizen.
The federal classified documents case
Trump’s classified documents case, alleging that he failed to return government secrets he took from the White House, was dismissed in July by Trump-nominated US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who said Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution.
The dismissal, which argues Congress should have approved Smith’s appointment, is now being appealed by Smith in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Smith’s appeals point to what he calls “the long tradition of special-counsel appointments by Attorneys’ General.”
Whoever loses the appeal can appeal further, keeping Trump busy with the classified documents case for many months.
The Georgia election interference case
The election interference case in Georgia against Trump and 18 of his allies remains in legal limbo, thanks to defendants’ efforts to get the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, disqualified from the state case.
In May, a Georgia appeals court agreed to consider Trump’s bid to get Willis removed from the case.
Attorneys for Trump and his codefendants had previously argued in a motion to disqualify Willis that she had a conflict of interest in the case because she improperly benefited from a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the Atlanta lawyer she hired as a special prosecutor.
After an evidentiary hearing earlier this year, a judge ruled that Willis and her office could remain on the case so long as Wade stepped aside, and Wade announced his resignation hours later.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the Georgia indictment.
If Trump wins the presidency, he could immediately file papers with the Georgia court “saying you got to put this on hold for the time that I’m president because it’s just not consistent with federal supremacy to have a state prosecuting a sitting president,” Dorf, a constitutional law expert, said.
“He doesn’t control the prosecutors, so you can’t fire them, and he can’t pardon himself because these are state crimes, so his only option really in the state cases is suspend them,” said Dorf.
If Trump loses the election, the case could move forward. Though Trump is likely to move to get it dismissed based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.
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