Former President Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee for president, will likely spend days in court defending himself against charges in multiple jurisdictions while also crisscrossing the country on the campaign trail until Election Day.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in all cases. Many trials have been delayed or put on pause.
Here is where each case stands:
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether Trump is immune from prosecution next month.
Arguments on presidential immunity are scheduled to begin on April 25. A ruling from the high court is expected by late June.
Trump and his legal team, in requesting the Supreme Court review the issue of presidential immunity, said that ‘if the prosecution of a president is upheld, such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination.’
‘Criminal prosecution, with its greater stigma and more severe penalties, imposes a far greater ‘personal vulnerability’ on the President than any civil penalty,’ the request states. ‘The threat of future criminal prosecution by a politically opposed Administration will overshadow every future president’s official acts — especially the most politically controversial decisions.’
Special Counsel Jack Smith charged the former president with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
Those charges stem from Smith’s months-long investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The trial was set to begin March 4 but was put on hold pending a resolution on the matter.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush-money payments case
The trial stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into Trump’s alleged hush-money payments during the 2016 election was scheduled to begin on March 25.
Last week, though, a judge delayed the trial until mid-April to give Trump’s lawyers additional time to go through 15,000 records of potential evidence the Justice Department shared from a previous federal investigation into the matter.
The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York said much of the newly produced material is unrelated to the state case against Trump. Federal prosecutors have already produced more than 100,000 pages of records for review. Fox News Digital has learned, though, that at least 74,000 pages of records initially were sent only to Bragg’s office and not to Trump’s legal team.
Trump’s lawyers were seeking a 90-day delay or a dismissal of charges against him, arguing there were violations in ‘the discovery process,’ whereby both sides exchange evidence. Defense lawyers said a 30-day delay was ‘insufficient.’
Trump’s lawyers have said the materials from the federal investigation are critical for his defense in the state case being brought by Bragg.
Bragg indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Bragg alleged that Trump ‘repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.’
The charges are related to alleged hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In 2019, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified records case
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Trump’s motion to dismiss charges of retaining classified documents on the grounds of ‘unconstitutional vagueness.’
Cannon has not yet ruled on Trump’s other argument, which is a motion to dismiss based on the Presidential Records Act.
Trump was charged out of Smith’s investigation into his retention of classified materials. Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of Smith’s probe. The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements.
Trump was also charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of the investigation — an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.
Trump pleaded not guilty.
Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference case
A Fulton County judge recently quashed six counts in the Georgia election interference case against Trump and his 18 co-defendants.
Judge Scott McAfee said in an order Wednesday that the state failed to allege sufficient detail for six counts of ‘solicitation of violation of oath by public officer.’
‘The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned opinion, fatal,’ McAfee wrote.
‘As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited,’ the judge continued.
‘They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.’
Georgia state law prohibits any public officer from willfully and intentionally violating the terms of his or her oath as prescribed by law. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleged that Trump and six of his co-defendants illegally attempted to persuade numerous state officials to violate their oaths in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Willis charged Trump with one count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, three counts of criminal solicitation, six counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of filing false documents and two counts of making false statements.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Meanwhile, Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade has withdrawn from the prosecution after McAfee said either he must go or Willis would be disqualified from prosecuting Trump. Four co-defendants had accused Willis of having an ‘improper’ affair with Wade, who she hired to help prosecute the case.
The defendants alleged that Willis benefited financially by hiring Wade in 2021 because they were in a preexisting romantic relationship and went on several trips together. Michael Roman, a Republican operative who worked on Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, alleged that Wade’s law firm billed taxpayers $650,000 at a rate of $250 an hour since his hiring — and that he used that income to pay for vacations with Willis.
Both Wade and Willis denied they were in a romantic relationship prior to his hiring. During a two-day evidentiary hearing in February, they each testified that they split the cost of their shared trips. Willis told the court she reimbursed Wade for her share of the trips in cash.
A trial date for Trump has not yet been set.
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