Get ready for a bumpy ride

Welcome to our first Trump on Trial newsletter of 2024, a year that will almost certainly test American democracy.

If the polls prove right, Donald Trump is on track to secure his party’s 2024 presidential nomination. And his campaign will unfold as the courts are filled with accusations of his misconduct.

Trump will juggle hearings — and possibly a few trials — in his four criminal cases. He could lose control of his company in a civil fraud case. And he will find out whether states can label him an insurrectionist and remove him from their ballots, a legal move that will likely end up before the Supreme Court.

This accumulation of problems would cause total chaos in a normal year, but 2024 will be anything but normal. Trump’s legal troubles will rush headlong into his jam-packed campaign calendar, with the first clash this month when, as he told Maggie, he plans to testify in a New York case starting just one day after the Iowa caucuses, to determine how much he will have to pay a woman he has already found guilty of defamation.

To help us prepare for a year like no other, we’ve mapped out some key issues and events that will help shape Trump’s fate.

Revolt

This week, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to settle a dispute over whether he can be removed from state ballots under the Constitution.

The measure in question, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, was introduced after the Civil War to prevent Southern rebels from holding important federal positions. So far, two states — Maine and Colorado — have found that Trump could be considered an insurrectionist for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But other states disagree, and Trump will legally challenge the Maine decision and appeal the Colorado decision to the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court takes up the case as expected, consideration of the issues could begin as soon as this month, during the early stages of the Republican primaries, which begin a week from Monday in Iowa and move on to New Hampshire the following week .

Trump’s team, in a kitchen-sink approach to overturning the Colorado ruling, has argued that millions of voters could be disenfranchised if states could keep him off the ballot, that the attack on the Capitol was not an insurrection, and that even if he were, he did not bring about it.

The Supreme Court could also become entangled in whether Trump is immune from prosecution on federal charges of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

The battle for immunity is the single most important part of the election interference case, involving both untested questions of law and consequent issues of timing. The case is currently scheduled to be heard in Washington in March – a day before Super Tuesday – but remains on hold until Trump’s efforts to dismiss the charges on immunity grounds are resolved.

Those efforts are now before a federal appeals court in Washington, which has agreed to expedite the matter. A three-judge panel will hear arguments on Tuesday, and Trump is making plans to attend, though he could decide not to.

The immunity claim is legally important because it centers on a question that has never before been asked or fully answered: Can a former president be held criminally liable for things he did while in office? This is all new because Trump is the first former president to be accused of crimes.

But the immunity battle, even if Trump loses on the substance of his arguments, could still determine whether the trial will take place before the November election.

The Supreme Court could have a huge impact on this question.

If the court moves quickly to hear the case, the federal election charges could be heard by a jury in late spring or summer. But if the court moves slowly, there may be no time for a trial at all before the election is decided — depriving voters of the opportunity to hear the evidence gathered by prosecutors and Trump’s opportunity, should he be elected . to have the Justice Department drop the charges.

Changes in the schedule

If the federal election interference trial is postponed until the summer or beyond, there are indications that another trial could take its place: one in New York based on allegations that Trump participated in the lead-up to the trial in hush money payments to a porn star. the 2016 election. If the trial were to proceed in New York, it could take place during the later stages of the primary season or as Trump – assuming his campaign does not falter – prepares to formally accept the Republican nomination at the party convention in July in Milwaukee.

That case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, will be familiar to many because of its colorful cast of characters. There’s Stormy Daniels, the porn star who claims Trump had an affair with her and tried to buy her silence when he first ran for office. Then there’s Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who is about to tell a jury that he made the payments on Trump’s behalf. Prosecutors allege that the company’s corporate records were falsified to cover Trump’s tracks.

We won’t know much about how Trump’s other federal case is likely to unfold until at least March 1. That’s when Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled a hearing in Florida to consider a new trial date.

The Florida case centers on allegations that Trump illegally withheld dozens of top-secret national security documents after leaving office and then conspired with two of his aides to obstruct the administration’s efforts to retrieve them.

Late last year, Judge Cannon expressed concern that her trial could “clash” with the election process in Washington and made some adjustments to its timing, mainly related to the files relating to the classified materials at the heart of the case .

While her timing shifts have made it virtually impossible for the trial to begin on its current start date of May 20, we will have to wait until the March hearing to see how long the proceedings will be delayed. Should the trial be postponed until after Election Day, and if Trump were to win, the documents case, like the federal election case, may never go before a jury, or at least be postponed until after he leaves office, given the judicial power. The department’s long-standing policy not to prosecute sitting presidents.

Timing questions also in Georgia

Trump’s trial in Georgia, on charges by a local prosecutor of election tampering in that state, is the only one of his four criminal cases that does not yet have a formal start date. Prosecutors with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office have said they want the trial to begin in August. But it remains to be seen whether the judge will accept that time frame and whether the trial will take place before the race is over. Trump’s lawyers have vehemently opposed it.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to file their preliminary motions challenging the charges on Monday. Expect to see court documents claiming that Trump is immune from the charges in Georgia in a way that mirrors the immunity arguments in Washington.

New York Court Dates

There will be two more things on Trump’s docket this month, even as voters in the Republican primaries begin selecting their nominee. The New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against Trump and his company is expected to conclude with a judge’s decision on what fines he must pay. The former president said this week that he plans to be in court.

Trump also faces damages for defaming E. Jean Carroll, a New York writer who said he raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. A jury ruled last year that he had sexually assaulted her. Trump has said he also plans to attend the trial, which starts a week from Tuesday in New York.

Your questions

We ask readers what they want to know about the Trump cases: the indictment, the proceedings, the key players or whatever. You can submit your question to us by completing this form.

Which past presidents have faced the litigation challenges that Donald Trump faced? – Frank Snitz, Berkeley, California

Alan: No past president has faced anything even close to the range of legal issues Trump faces. Trump is the first former president to be charged with a crime and the first to have his name removed from the ballot under a constitutional provision banning insurrection. He is also the first former president to face court – or more accurately, trials – while running for re-election.

Where is each criminal case?

Trump is at the center of at least four separate criminal investigations, at both the state and federal level, into matters related to his business and political careers. Here’s where each case currently stands.