What happens to Trump’s criminal and civil cases now that he has been re-elected?

() – Donald Trump has just been re-elected to the White House as a convicted felon awaiting sentencing in his hush money case in New York and while trying to avoid other prosecutions in state and federal cases.

It’s an extraordinarily unique situation: Never before had a criminal defendant been elected to the nation’s highest office, nor had a former president been criminally charged until last year.

Trump has said on several occasions that he plans to fire special counsel Jack Smith and end federal cases against him related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his mishandling of classified documents.

“It was clearly worth pushing aggressively to delay these cases as long as possible,” said Jessica Levinson, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School.

Meanwhile, a judge in New York was appointed to sentence the former president later this month, after postponing the ruling to avoid the appearance of influencing the outcome of the presidential campaign. However, Trump’s lawyers are expected to ask the judge to delay the sentencing now that he is president-elect.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. Here is what is known about the four criminal cases:

Trump is scheduled to appear in a New York court on Nov. 26 for sentencing following his conviction earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records, related to paying hush money during the 2016 campaign. to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who alleged a previous affair with the president-elect, (which Trump denies).

The possibility of this sentence being carried out remains an unknown.

Judge Juan Merchan set a deadline of Nov. 12 to decide whether to overturn the conviction because of a Supreme Court decision, which grants any president some immunity. If Merchan does that, the charges would be dismissed and he would not be sentenced.

But if he decides to uphold the sentence, Trump’s lawyers are expected to ask Merchan to delay the sentence so he can appeal. If it is not granted, his attorneys plan to appeal the immunity decision in state appeals courts and potentially all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could delay sentencing for months.

If Merchan goes ahead with the sentence, Trump could be sentenced to up to four years in prison, although the judge is not required to sentence the president-elect to prison and could impose a lesser sentence, such as probation, home confinement , community service or a fine.

Any sentencing, of course, will be complicated by the fact that Trump will take office on January 20, 2025. His lawyers will likely structure their appeals to raise constitutional questions about whether a state judge can sentence a president-elect, which could delay the case in court for years.

Since it is a state case, Trump does not have the power to pardon himself next year after taking office.

Trump’s election victory could have the biggest impact on the two federal criminal cases brought against him by Jack Smith in Washington and Florida.

Since the cases were filed in 2023, Trump’s primary legal strategy has been to delay the trials until after the election so that, if elected, he can fire Smith and thereby end the two cases. In late October, the former president said he would take such a step without hesitation.

“Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy,” Trump said when asked in a radio interview whether he would “pardon himself” or “fire Jack Smith” if he was re-elected.

“I would fire him in two seconds,” Trump said.

Firing Smith would allow the Justice Department and Trump’s attorney general to propose dismissing the charges against him and ending the court cases.

But until Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Smith has time to evaluate his options on issues the department has never faced before.

An initial hurdle is whether the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel believes that an elected president has the same legal protection from prosecution as a sitting president. That would determine the next step, people briefed on the matter told .

More than half a dozen people close to the special counsel’s office or other senior Justice Department officials told they believe Smith does not want to close before being ordered to do so or being removed by Trump.

Under federal law, Smith must submit a confidential report on his office’s work to the U.S. attorney general before leaving office.

In the Washington case, Smith accused Trump of trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. The case was held up for months as Trump pressured federal courts to grant him presidential immunity, and in July the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling stating that he has some immunity from criminal prosecution.

The federal judge overseeing the trial has been deciding how much of Trump’s conduct at the center of the case is protected by immunity, after prosecutors presented arguments last month explaining why the decision should have no impact on the case. .

The charges filed by Smith in Florida consist of an accusation against Trump of illegally taking classified documents from the White House and resisting the government’s attempts to recover the materials.

That case was dismissed in July by Judge Aileen Cannon, but prosecutors have appealed the ruling, which said Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Smith violated the Constitution.

The immediate fate of Trump’s criminal case in Georgia depends largely on whether Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis, a Democrat, is disqualified because of a previous romantic relationship with a fellow prosecutor. But even if it is allowed to proceed, the case would almost certainly be at risk now that Trump is president-elect.

Criminal charges against Trump for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election are on hold while the appeals court decides whether to disqualify Willis, a decision that is expected until 2025.

If Willis is removed, sources told they believe it is unlikely another prosecutor would want to take the case and, in effect, she would disappear.

Sources close to the case said it is unlikely that a state judge would allow the proceedings to continue when Trump is president, and in that case, lawyers would certainly seek to have the case dismissed.

There is no clear answer as to whether a state prosecutor, like Willis, can prosecute a sitting president. Trump’s victory forces Willis to confront that constitutional question, in addition to existing legal problems that have already created uncertainty about the future of the Georgia case.

Civil lawsuits

The former president is also defending himself against numerous civil lawsuits, including those over his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, two defamation cases involving E. Jean Carroll, and a civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general. , in which Trump was ordered to pay almost $454 million.

In September, state and federal appeals courts in New York heard arguments on two of Trump’s civil appeals.

Trump lost two defamation cases against Carroll in 2023 and 2024 in federal court after a jury found him responsible for sexually abusing the former columnist and subsequently defaming her. Two juries awarded Carroll damages of $5 million and $83 million.

In September, a federal appeals court heard Trump’s appeal to throw out the first verdict in Carroll’s favor. The court has not yet issued a decision.

Later in the month, a state appeals court heard arguments from Trump in his bid to overturn the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him, in which a judge found that he, his adult children and his business They fraudulently inflated the value of Trump’s assets to obtain better loan rates and insurance. The five-judge appeals court appeared willing to at least reduce Trump’s fine, although it has also not issued a decision. That ruling can be appealed to New York’s highest appeals court.

Trump also faces civil lawsuits filed by Democratic lawmakers and others for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

It is possible that all of these cases will continue even as Trump serves his second term in the White House. In a 1997 ruling by the Supreme Court, which arose from a civil suit involving then-President Bill Clinton, the justices unanimously decided that sitting presidents could not invoke presidential immunity to avoid civil litigation while in office. post.