Donald Trump’s projected victory on election night will likely lead him to a number of other court victories, NBC News reports.
Being elected president will likely result in the federal criminal charges against him dismissedwhile his state criminal case could at least be frozen until he leaves office.
Justice Department officials have already begun evaluating how to dispose of the two federal cases against Trump before he takes office to comply with the department’s policy that a sitting president cannot be impeached, It was reported by NBC News Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Trump’s legal team, meanwhile, is evaluating its next steps on how to resolve all four criminal cases and plans to soon argue that all cases “must be stopped immediately,” according to a source directly involved in the discussions.
The presidency likely won’t be able to shield Trump from the hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties he already faces from the various civil cases against him, but it could be an asset in his defense against others still pending.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all cases, referring to them as “witch hunts” that should be dismissed.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said his election victory makes “very clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system.”
Here’s a look at where the various legal cases against Trump stand — and how they might be affected by his victory.
State criminal cases
Trump is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced in New York on November 26 following his conviction earlier this year on 34 cases of serious crime of falsifying business records related to a 2016 kickback payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
If the sentence continues, Judge Juan Merchan could potentially send Trump to prison. It would be immediately appealed, and Trump’s lawyers were able to successfully argue that he cannot serve any time until he has finished his term because the Constitution prevents the president from being restricted from performing his official duties.
It is also unclear at this point whether the sentence will continue at all.
Trump’s lawyers have a motion pending that argues his conviction should be thrown out because of the Supreme Court’s July ruling that expands the scope of presidential immunity.
They argue that some of the evidence presented to the grand jury and at the criminal trial should not have been allowed in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Merchan is due to rule on that request by Nov. 12, and he could decide to proceed with the sentencing, dismiss the charges or order a new trial. A new trial would have to take place after Trump finishes his term in 2029.
Trump is also awaiting trial in Georgia, where he faces state charges of conspiring to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The scattered cases is on hold until at least December, when a the Court of Appeal will weigh whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office should be allowed to prosecute it.
If she is ousted, officials must find another prosecutor to take over the case, a drawn-out process that could lead to a new prosecutor deciding to reduce or drop charges.
Even if Willis moves forward, legal experts told NBC News she would face the same hurdles as New York prosecutors. Trump could not be tried until after his term ends. In the meantime, Willis would also have to clear new legal hurdles resulting from the immunity ruling.
Federal criminal cases
Trump is the subject of two criminal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith — one involving federal charges of trying to illegally subvert the 2020 election and the other to hold on to classified documents after he left office and lied to investigators about it.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the dossier earlier this year after finding that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was illegal.
The Justice Department appealed the ruling, but the department is part of the executive branch, which Trump will regain control of in January. “He can instruct the Justice Department not to even bother with the appeal,” said NBC News legal analyst Danny Cevallos.
The election meddling case was still ongoing, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had not yet set a trial date because the case has been mired in arguments stemming from the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Smith had proceeded with filings in both cases as if it were business as usual during the election period, but the two sources told NBC Wednesday that is no longer the case, and DOJ officials see no room to pursue either criminal case and no point in to continue testing them in the remaining weeks before he takes office.
The department’s position originates from the year 2000 p.m by his own Office of Legal Counsel, which upheld a Watergate-era conclusion that an indictment of a sitting president would “improperly interfere in a direct or formal sense with the conduct of the presidency.”
The sources said it would be up to Smith to decide exactly how to dispose of the charges.
“These cases are, for all intents and purposes, gone,” Cevallos said even before reporting the DOJ’s new position. “The federal cases will go away.”
Civil cases and judgments
The presidency could be an asset in Trump’s defense in a number of pending cases civil lawsuits related to his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Trump has argued that his actions were protected by presidential immunity, and he could use his new position to get the Justice Department involved in his defense.
He could also now argue that those cases should not be tried until after his trial in Georgia because they cover similar grounds and could affect his right against self-incrimination.
Trump’s victory is unlikely to affect his ongoing appeals of the civil judgments against him that total more than $550 million.
The president-elect is appealing the largest award, a $478 million judgment in a civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. During argument before the state Appellate Division in September, three members of the five-judge panel indicated they thought the award was excessive. It is unclear when the panel will rule.
In a news conference Wednesday, James said her office had been “preparing for months” for a possible re-election of Trump.
“We’ve been here before, we’ve faced this challenge before,” she said. “And we’ve used the rule of law to fight back. And we’re prepared to fight back again.”
Trump is too attractive a pair of jury awards totaling approximately $88 million that he must pay author E. Jean Carroll. She filed two lawsuits against Trump, one for allegedly sexually assaulting her in the 1990s and for defamation, and another for defaming her while he was president.
The Court of Appeal is expected to rule on the sexual assault case first, but it is unclear when that will happen.
One case his new office would likely be unable to protect him from is one defamation process was brought against him last month by members of the so-called Central Park Five, now calling themselves the Exonerated Five.
The five are suing Trump for false claims he made about them in September presidential debate.
A 1997 Supreme Court decision ruled that presidents are not immune from civil suits which are not related to their time in service
Laura Jarrett and Ken Dilanian contributed.
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