What will happen to Trump's criminal and civil cases after he is re-elected?

CNN
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Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House as a convicted felon awaiting sentencing in his hush money case in New York and still working to stave off prosecution in other state and federal cases.

It's an extraordinarily unique position for him: No criminal defendant has ever been elected to the highest office in the land, just as no former president had ever been criminally charged until last year.

Trump has repeatedly said he plans to fire special counsel Jack Smith and drop federal cases against him for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and mishandling classified documents.

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

Meanwhile, a judge in New York will sentence the former president later this month after he held off imposing the sentence until Election Day to avoid any appearance of influencing the outcome of the presidential campaign – although Trump's lawyers expect him to do so Ask the judge to postpone sentencing since he is now the elected president.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. This is what you should know about the four criminal cases:

Trump is scheduled to appear in a New York courtroom on Nov. 26 to receive a verdict for his conviction earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign. who claimed a previous affair with the president-elect. (Trump denies the affair.)

Whether this conviction will even occur remains an open question.

Judge Juan Merchan has given himself a Nov. 12 deadline to decide whether to overturn the conviction, given the Supreme Court's decision this summer to grant some immunity to a president. If Merchan did so, the charges would be dismissed and he would not be convicted.

However, if the judge decides to uphold the verdict, the former president's lawyers are expected to ask Merchan to delay Trump's sentencing so they can appeal. And if that's not granted, his lawyers plan to appeal the immunity decision to state appeals courts and possibly up to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking courts to delay Trump's conviction until all avenues of appeal have been exhausted, which could take months.

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

Of course, any judgment is complicated by the fact that Trump will take office on January 20, 2025. Trump's lawyers are likely to frame their appeals to raise constitutional questions that question whether a state judge can convict a president-elect, which could keep the case in court for years.

Because this is a state case, Trump does not have the authority to pardon himself after he takes office next year.

Federal cases in DC and Florida

Trump's election victory is likely to have the greatest impact on the two federal criminal cases that Smith has brought against him in Washington, DC and Florida.

Because the cases were filed in 2023, Trump's main legal strategy was to delay the trials until after the election so that if elected he could fire Smith, leading to the end of the two cases. At the end of October, the former president said he would take such a step without hesitation.

“Oh, it's so simple. It's that simple,” Trump said when asked by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would “pardon himself” or “fire Jack Smith” if re-elected.

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

Firing Smith would allow the Justice Department and Trump's attorney general to drop charges against him and end the legal proceedings.

But Smith has until Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 to weigh his options on issues the department has never had to deal with before.

A first 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. Those guidelines will determine the next course of action, people with knowledge of the matter told CNN.

Can Trump fire Jack Smith if elected? The reporter breaks it down

More than half a dozen people close to the special counsel's office or other senior Justice Department officials told CNN that they believe Smith does not want to close the deal until he is asked to do so or is ousted by Trump.

Federal law requires Smith to provide the attorney general with a confidential report on his office's work before he leaves office.

In the D.C. case, Smith blamed Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The case stalled for months as Trump pushed federal courts to grant him presidential immunity, and in July the Supreme Court issued a historic ruling affirming some immunity from prosecution.

The federal judge overseeing the trial has decided to what extent Trump's conduct at the heart of the case is protected by immunity after prosecutors laid out their arguments last month why the ruling should have no impact on the case.

The charges Smith filed against the president-elect in Florida accuse Trump of illegally taking classified documents from the White House and resisting government attempts to retrieve the materials. The case was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon in July, but prosecutors appealed her ruling, which said Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of Smith violated the Constitution.

The immediate fate of Trump's criminal case in Georgia largely depends on whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is barred from prosecution after previously having a romantic relationship with another prosecutor. But even if she were allowed to continue prosecuting Trump, the case would almost certainly be in jeopardy now that he has been elected.

Criminal charges against Trump for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election are effectively on hold while the appeals court decides whether to disqualify Willis, a decision not expected until 2025.

If Willis is removed, sources told CNN, it is unlikely that another prosecutor would want to take over the case and the case will effectively be dropped.

Sources familiar with the case said it was unlikely that a state judge would allow the trial to proceed if Trump was president, and in that scenario, Trump's lawyers would certainly ask for the case to be dismissed.

There is no clear answer as to whether a state prosecutor like Willis can prosecute a sitting president. Trump's victory now forces Willis to confront this constitutional question in addition to the existing legal questions that already raise uncertainty about the future of the Georgia case.

The former president is also defending himself in a litany of civil lawsuits, including those related to his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, two defamation suits against E. Jean Carroll and a civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General condemned Trump to pay nearly $454 million.

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

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

A federal appeals court heard Trump's appeal to dismiss the first Carroll ruling in September. The court has not yet made a decision.

Later that month, a state appeals court heard arguments in Trump's efforts to overturn the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him, in which a judge found that he, his adult sons and his company fraudulently inflated the value of Trump's assets had to get better credit insurance rates.

The five-judge appeals court appeared at least poised to reduce the fine imposed on Trump, although it has not yet made a decision. This ruling can be appealed to New York's highest appeals court.

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

It is possible that all of these cases will continue during Trump's second term in the White House. In a 1997 Supreme Court ruling based on a civil case involving then-President Bill Clinton, the justices unanimously ruled that sitting presidents could not rely on presidential immunity to bring civil cases while in office to avoid.