(AFP) – The year 2024 was set to be a judicial minefield for Donald Trump, with some thinking the former president could be behind bars before the November 5 presidential election. However, the Republican candidate has managed to delay three of the four trials until after the election, despite facing 88 criminal charges in total. He pulled it off via an array of appeals and other tactics by his army of lawyers, including a broad immunity ruling by the US Supreme Court. He was only found guilty in the least serious case, which involved falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels. The latest good news for Trump came Friday, when a judge officially delayed his sentencing in that case to November 26 — weeks after the US presidential election.
Here’s an overview of how his legal woes look currently.
**- Challenging the 2020 election results -** Donald Trump faces federal charges for his illegal attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election won by US President Joe Biden. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has charged Trump with the likes of “conspiracy to defraud the United States” and “obstructing an official proceeding,” among others. Although Trump is not directly accused of the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, Smith has alleged he stirred up violence and chaos. The trial was initially set to begin March 4 in Washington, with Trump facing a potential sentence of decades in prison if found guilty. However, the case was delayed significantly when the Supreme Court decided to rule on presidential immunity, issuing a decision in July that Trump had broad protection for “official acts” as president. Smith filed a revised indictment in late August accounting for the ruling, but now has to restart the battle with Trump’s legal team about the trial’s timeline. The judge in the case, Tanya Chutkan, acknowledged during a hearing Thursday that it would be impossible to set a new trial date in the two months before the election.
**- The 2020 election in Georgia -** The former Republican president also faces charges in the southeastern US state of Georgia for alleged election interference, including a phone call where he asked a local official to “find” him 11,000 missing votes — the margin by which he lost the state to Joe Biden in 2020. Trump had to visit an Atlanta prison to get his mug shot taken for the case, a humiliating first for a former US president. However, the progress of the case suffered when it came out that the local prosecutor, Fani Willis, had an intimate relationship with an investigator she hired for it, Nathan Wade. Trump’s lawyers advocated for the case to be dismissed due to the conflict of interest, and the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity has not helped either. As a result, the trial, which was initially supposed to start on August 5, has been officially paused while the matter winds through the court system for months to come.
**- The classified documents at Mar-a-Lago -** In another federal case under special prosecutor Jack Smith, Trump faces accusations of retaining top-secret documents at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. He is also accused of attempting to destroy evidence of the retention. The most serious charges carry a prison sentence of 10 years. Though originally set to go to trial on May 20, Trump scored a victory when Judge Aileen Cannon — who was appointed by the former president — stopped criminal proceedings on July 15, based on allegations that Smith had been appointed illegally. Smith appealed the decision at the end of August to get the case back on track, but given the pace of federal appellate courts, it will likely be months before a decision is made.
**- The hush money sentencing -** The financial crimes case in New York was the only one that made it to trial for Trump, taking place from mid-April until the end of May. Despite claims by Trump the trial was “rigged,” a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to make hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in order to avoid a scandal right before the 2016 presidential election. Facing up to four years in prison, Trump was originally set to be sentenced in September. However, on Friday, Judge Juan Merchan postponed the hearing until three weeks after the election, offering reprieve for the Republican candidate.
– Sébastien BLANC
© 2024 AFP
