Assessing Trump’s legal strength: Ranking his four criminal cases.
Donald Trump Indicted: The Former President’s One Big Advantage as Criminal Charges Pile Up
Former President Donald Trump now has five indictments for four criminal cases under his belt, and the public is split across party lines over Trump’s actions in the federal and state alleged crimes.
Now that the indictments have been returned, the next step for prosecutors is to present their case at trial, a chance to show how strong their claims against the former president are. Republicans have brushed off the criminal charges as political targeting or persecution, while Democrats have praised the justice system, saying no one is above the law.
The Four Criminal Cases Against Trump
Here is a ranking of the legal cases against Trump and how likely they are to be upheld in court:
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Florida — Classified Documents
Trump was federally charged with 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified documents. Two of his aides, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, also face charges stemming from the hundreds of documents discovered at Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago.
The former president is, among other charges, accused of violating the Espionage Act and conspiracy to obstruct government efforts to retrieve the documents. His aides are also charged with conspiracy to obstruct the investigation and with making false statements.
This case may be the strongest of the four on paper, with the indictment providing ample documents of evidence to support the claims, including photos of documents in the Mar-a-Lago rooms and video surveillance showing people coming in and out of the rooms where the documents were being held.
Also, several of Trump’s claims of executive privilege may not provide any protection for the former president, as the alleged crimes took place after he left the White House. He insisted that he declassified everything that he took with him, but there has been no credible evidence submitted to substantiate the claim.
The charges are not unprecedented applications of the law; they have been used against other defendants, just not against a high-profile defendant like Trump, according to the New York Times. However, if Trump is convicted and becomes president in 2024, he could pardon himself for the crimes.
The case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has already ruled in the former president’s favor when she assigned a special master to review the documents taken during the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago.
The jury for the case will also be drawn from five counties in Fort Pierce, where Trump won the majority of the votes, increasing the chance that the jurors could have more sympathy for the former president. Trump only needs one holdout on the jury to receive a mistrial, as a unanimous verdict from all 12 jurors is necessary to convict.
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Washington, DC — 2020 Election
Trump is charged with four counts: one of conspiring to defraud the government, one of disenfranchising voters, and two counts of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding — the Jan. 6, 2021, certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
This case centers on a core process of the U.S. electoral system and comes as Trump runs for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.
Unlike the Florida case, this election interference case relies on novel applications of laws and more ambiguous facts rather than concrete evidence, such as the physical documents found.
These charges have never been brought before, given a situation such as Jan. 6 and Trump’s efforts to prevent Biden from becoming the president are unprecedented. This is likely the reason that special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump’s alleged crime in three different ways to potentially achieve a conviction.
It will be critical during the trial for prosecutors to prove that Trump had criminal intent when he committed the acts. The former president could claim he genuinely believed that there was widespread voter fraud and that the election had been stolen from him, but several Jan. 6 rioters have used that same claim in their own court cases, and it has not worked.
Trump’s lawyers have already argued against a protective order claiming it infringes on their client’s First Amendment rights. His legal counsel has already indicated they intend to argue the same infringement during the trial.
The case was assigned to Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee with a history of sentencing Jan. 6 rioters. The jury pool will be taken from Washington, D.C., which leans heavily Democratic.
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Georgia — Efforts to Overturn the State’s 2020 Election
The former president is charged with 13 counts as part of a 41-count indictment of Trump and 18 of his allies for efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. This indictment, which dropped Monday night, is the latest one to come down against Trump.
Trump is accused of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and conspiring to use fake electors for the Georgia 2020 election. He’s also charged with several counts of soliciting a public official to violate their oath.
It overlaps with the federal case, which means it’s possible Trump could raise First Amendment objections in the Georgia election case, as well. This case, however, is different for several reasons. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted 18 people alongside Trump, while Smith only focused on the former president’s alleged crimes.
The legal implications of this case are also different. Because RICO is a state law, even if Trump becomes president, he wouldn’t be able to pardon himself.
Prosecutors will need to show that as part of his efforts to overturn the election, he conspired in two or more offenses from a list of several dozen. Some of these include solicitation, forgery, and making materially false statements to state officials.
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Manhattan — Hush Money Payments
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign. The charges were brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
This is considered the least significant and weakest case of the four. Prosecutors must show that Trump intended to commit, aid, or conceal another crime, even if he is not charged with that other crime, to convict him of a bookkeeping fraud felony.
The idea prosecutors are going after is that Trump falsified records to conceal violations of federal or state election laws. Using campaign finance laws can be difficult, as it can be challenging to determine whether paying off a paramour, porn star Stormy Daniels in this case, is a campaign expenditure or a personal one.
If the payment to Daniels was a campaign expenditure, the Trump campaign violated a legal requirement to report it in Federal Election Commission filings, and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s payment to her was a loan to the campaign that violated individual contribution limits.
It has never been tested in court whether a state prosecutor can invoke a federal election crime.
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