With Criminal Cases Looming, Trump Has a Personal Stake in the Election
"If he wins the White House, Donald J. Trump, who has a sentencing hearing three weeks after Election Day, could disrupt or even dispose of the various cases he is facing.
Former President Donald J. Trump has a uniquely personal interest in the outcome of the election: If he wins the White House, he could disrupt or even dispose of the various criminal cases he is facing. But if he loses, he could become the first former president to lose his liberty, too.
Mr. Trump’s four criminal cases are quietly chugging along in court even as his race against Vice President Kamala Harris dominates the news. Important legal battles continue to be fought, and motions to be filed. Even now, Mr. Trump’s lawyers are preparing for him to be sentenced — possibly to jail time — on his one conviction so far at a hearing in Manhattan scheduled for three weeks after Election Day.
Mr. Trump has told people close to him that if he wins the election, the legal cases would simply “go away.” On Thursday he said he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed two federal cases against him, “within two seconds” if he regains the White House. “I don’t think they’ll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith,” Mr. Trump, who was impeached twice by the House of Representatives, told the radio host Hugh Hewitt.
He went further in another radio interview, suggesting that Mr. Smith should be deported along with undocumented immigrants. “Jack Smith should be considered mentally deranged and he should be thrown out of the country,” Mr. Trump said on WABC, a talk radio station in New York.
Becoming president again would place Mr. Trump back in charge of the Justice Department, giving him significant powers to dispose of the indictments brought by Mr. Smith. In one of those cases, based in Washington, Mr. Trump stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. In the other, based in Florida, he was charged with illegally holding on to classified material after leaving office.
A victory at the polls could have an impact on the state cases he faces as well.
It could hinder efforts by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., to pursue her case against Mr. Trump on charges of tampering with the 2020 election results in Georgia. That is because, legal experts say, state authorities are expected to honor a longstanding federal prohibition against prosecuting a sitting president.
For similar reasons, regaining the White House could throw a wrench into Mr. Trump’s sentencing in Manhattan in the case where he was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal with Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic film actress who goes by the name Stormy Daniels. If he wins, legal scholars say, it is extremely unlikely that he would be forced to serve any time while he remains in office.
When Mr. Trump shows up to Manhattan Criminal Court to be sentenced on Nov. 26, his lawyers are likely to argue that as a 78-year-old man with no prior convictions, he should avoid serving jail time altogether.
But an examination by The New York Times of dozens of similar cases determined that Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over the case, could well decide to sentence Mr. Trump to jail. The examination found that more than a third of the defendants who were convicted of falsifying business records in Manhattan over the past decade spent time behind bars. And jail could be a real possibility for Mr. Trump not only because he was found guilty of 34 felony counts at trial, but also because he was twice found in contempt for his unruly behavior during the proceedings and has continued to attack both the jury’s verdict and those who played a role in the case.
People close to Mr. Trump say he does not often talk about what a loss might mean for his future, although he and his lawyers have been acutely focused on pushing key courtroom events — like his sentencing in Manhattan — until after the election.
Mr. Trump’s three other criminal cases present far less of an immediate threat to him. Indeed, even if he loses in November, they may never go in front of a jury — or for that matter, result in a conviction that requires imposition of a sentence.
Mr. Smith, for instance, is currently trying to defend a revised version of his election interference indictment against the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this summer granting Mr. Trump a broad form of immunity against charges arising from his official acts as president. The process of determining how much of that indictment will have to be thrown out and how much can proceed to trial could take many months.
Complicating matters, any decisions by the trial judge on the question of immunity are almost certain to end up back at the Supreme Court, which will have the final say. And it is impossible to predict how much, if any, of the indictment the justices will allow to survive.
Mr. Trump’s classified documents case is arguably on even shakier ground at this point, having been dismissed in its entirety in July by a Trump-appointed judge who ruled that Mr. Smith had been illegally appointed to his post as special counsel.
Mr. Smith has appealed that ruling by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, whose name recently appeared on a list prepared by some advisers to Mr. Trump identifying her as a possible choice for top legal positions in a Trump administration.
But even if Mr. Smith wins his appeal and the case is reinstated, Judge Cannon could dismiss it again on separate grounds, and it could take months or even years to get to trial.
Mr. Trump’s final case, in Georgia, has been on hold for months as a state appeals court considers a bid by the defense to disqualify Ms. Willis following revelations that she had a romantic relationship with the lawyer she hired to manage the prosecution. Legal experts expect that the appeal is unlikely to be resolved until next year.
And even if the case survives appeal, it is still in its early stages and could take as long as another year to reach a jury.
Although Mr. Trump’s legal team has repeatedly assailed the prosecutions as “election interference,” the cases have gone from being a driving force of his campaign last year and earlier this year to now being more like a low-level hum in the background of the contest.
As the cases have encountered a series of obstacles and become bogged down in various states of limbo, they are no longer quite the public spectacles they once were. Perhaps for that reason, and also to avoid making the indictments appear overly political, Ms. Harris has not leaned heavily on Mr. Trump’s legal woes after opening her campaign by drawing a sharp distinction between herself as a former prosecutor, and her opponent as a felon.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump. More about Alan Feuer
Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman"
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