Election victory gives Trump reprieve from federal, State charges

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Donald Trump’s election victory not only catapults him back to the White House but grants him a reprieve from looming court battles and soaring legal bills.

As U.S. President, 78-year-old Mr. Trump can make the federal criminal cases facing him vanish and see the State cases put on hold until he leaves the Oval Office four years from now.

Special counsel Jack Smith has filed two federal charges against Mr. Trump, for conspiring to overturn the results of 2020 election and for mishandling top secret documents after leaving the White House.

He also faces racketeering charges over his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia, and in May was convicted in a hush money case in New York. But a Supreme Court ruling in May granted the him broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

Mr. Trump pledged during the election campaign to fire Mr. Smith “within two seconds” of taking office, even though he does not have the authority as President. But he could name a new Attorney-General who could do so. The new President could also simply order the Justice Department to drop the charges.

Mr. Smith, who was appointed by Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s Attorney-General, brought two cases against Mr. Trump — for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and for mishandling top secret documents after leaving the White House.

Mr. Trump is also accused of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — the session of Congress called to certify the Biden win which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021, by a mob of his supporters.

The Republican is also accused of seeking to disenfranchise U.S. voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election.

His documents case was tossed out by a federal judge in Florida, a Trump appointee, on the grounds that Mr. Smith was unlawfully appointed. The special counsel has appealed the dismissal, but both federal cases appear doomed now that Mr. Trump has won the presidency.

He was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.

Mr. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced in July but his lawyers asked that his conviction be tossed in light of the Supreme Court immunity ruling.

Judge Juan Merchan is to rule on the dismissal motion on November 12 and has set sentencing — should it still be necessary — for November 26.

Mr. Trump, the first former President convicted of a crime, faces up to four years in prison on each count. As a first-time offender, however, he was considered far more likely to receive a fine and probation — and that was before his White House win.

“It would also be possible to have a deferred sentence if it involved any jail term,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

In Georgia, Mr. Trump faces racketeering charges over his efforts to subvert the 2020 results in the southern State, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in office under a federal policy of not prosecuting a sitting President.

The case has also been bogged down in accusations of impropriety by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, who had an intimate relationship with the man she hired to be a special prosecutor.