Mr. Trump is facing four prosecutions, but experts say the legal pressure will be significantly reduced, or even disappear completely, after he is elected.
Donald Trump was elected US President on November 6 and will take office in January 2025, becoming the first White House owner to have two non-consecutive terms in a century.
Mr. Trump was elected while facing four prosecutions, including conspiracy to overturn the election, leading to the Capitol Hill riot in Washington, illegally retaining classified documents after leaving the White House in Florida, falsifying business records to pay to suppress information during the 2016 election in New York and allegations of election interference in the state of Georgia.
Mr. Trump has denied all charges. A New York jury found Mr. Trump “guilty” in late May and is awaiting sentencing on November 26. The series of developments raises questions about how these legal battles will continue in the time before he takes office.
“Essentially, all of his criminal problems are gone,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, co-founder and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers in California, told Fortune . “The question is, will they go away in November, or December, or January 2025, when Trump takes office?”
Mr. Trump became the first former US president to be indicted in late March 2023. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York, indicted Mr. Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to pay to suppress unfavorable information during the 2016 presidential election.
Manhattan criminal judge Juan Merchan presided over the trial. The jury found Trump guilty in late May. Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but that was delayed after the Supreme Court ruled on the former president’s immunity on July 1, stating that Trump enjoys immunity for official actions but not for actions in his personal capacity.
Judge Merchan then pushed back the sentencing date to November 26, avoiding the impression that he had influenced the election outcome. Mr Trump’s legal team has been preparing an appeal scenario if he is sentenced to prison, arguing that the sentence makes him unfit to hold office and that he should be freed pending a final decision, said Julie Rendelman, a former Brooklyn prosecutor. “The appeals process in this scenario could take years.”
However, this scenario has become increasingly unlikely since Mr. Trump was elected. Judge Merchan is likely to rule on November 12 to dismiss the case under the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. If Mr. Merchan decides to dismiss the case, Mr. Trump will not face any prison time.
Mr Merchan could still pass sentence as planned, despite Mr Trump now being president-elect, former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman told the BBC .
A 2000 memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the US Department of Justice also argued that “prosecution or trial of a sitting president would undermine the ability of the executive branch to carry out its constitutionally mandated duties.”
“There is no scenario where you can bring a desk from the Oval Office into a prison,” law professor Lawrence Douglas, of Amherst College in Massachusetts, told Fortune .
According to law professor Markus Wagner, University of Wollongong, Australia, the most likely scenario is that Mr. Merchan will apply the spirit of the OLC memorandum to shelve the case, although technically it only applies to the incumbent president and binds federal agencies.
Another state case Mr. Trump is facing is an alleged conspiracy to overturn the election in Georgia, which was not affected by the federal government’s authority, even after Mr. Trump took office.
In the case, which was filed in August 2023, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted 19 people, including Trump, who faced 13 charges. Judge Scott McAfee dismissed five charges, and Trump now faces eight charges.
However, the trial is currently at a standstill due to Willis’ alleged affair with a prosecutor in her office. Mr. Trump and the defendants have petitioned Judge McAfee to remove Ms. Willis from the case due to a “conflict of interest.” The judge is expected to rule on the matter in early 2025.
If Willis is removed from the prosecution, Georgia officials will have difficulty finding a replacement, or Willis’ successor will drop or drop the charges against the president-elect.
Even if Willis were allowed to continue in office, that effort would be difficult, given that Trump would have already taken office. Even if convicted, Trump could appeal to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is appointed by the state’s Republican governor, and would likely be approved.
The two federal prosecutions in Florida and Washington, both led by special prosecutor Jack Smith, are two cases that could easily be dismissed by Trump after he takes office, analysts say, because there are no constitutional or legal barriers preventing the president from asking the attorney general to dismiss federal cases against him.
Special Counsel Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to investigate Mr. Trump. In the Washington investigation, Smith filed a four-count indictment in August 2023. After the US Supreme Court’s ruling in July, Smith amended the indictment, narrowing the allegations.
The second investigation concerns government documents seized by the FBI during a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August 2022. Trump was indicted in June 2023 on 40 charges.
Image of Jack Smith released by the US Department of Justice on November 18, 2022, after appointing him as special prosecutor to oversee two investigations into former President Donald Trump. Photo: Reuters .
Federal Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida ruled in July that Smith had been “improperly appointed” and did not have the authority to bring charges. Smith then filed a petition with a federal appeals court asking for the prosecution of Mr. Trump to be reinstated.
“It is clear that a sitting president cannot be indicted, so the case in Washington federal court will be dismissed,” Rahmani said. If Smith still wants to pursue the case, Trump can simply fire the special prosecutor.
Just before the election, Mr. Trump asserted that if he won, he would “fire Smith in two seconds,” calling Smith one of the first problems to be solved.
Mr. Rahmani predicts the Florida prosecution will meet the same fate.
US media reported on November 6 that Smith is reportedly considering dropping two federal prosecutions against Mr. Trump. However, Smith’s office has not commented on the information, saying only that he will release an updated report on the cases on December 2.
Source: vnexpress.net (Nhu Tam – According to BBC, Fortune )
Source: Vietnam Insider