Leroy N. Soetoro
2024-11-06 22:34:22 UTC
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Donald Trump has been reelected to the White House as a convicted felon
who is awaiting sentencing in his hush money case in New York and still
working to stave off prosecution in other state and federal cases.
Its an extraordinarily unique position for him to be in: Never before has
a criminal defendant been elected to the nations highest office, just as
an ex-president had never been criminally charged until last year.
Trump has said multiple times he plans to fire special counsel Jack Smith
and end the federal cases against him for trying to overturn the 2020
presidential election and mishandling classified documents.
As of Wednesday, Smith is in active talks with Justice Department
leadership about how to end the federal cases against Trump, a DOJ
official familiar with the discussions told CNN.
It clearly paid off to aggressively push to delay these cases as long as
possible, said Jessica Levinson, a constitutional law professor at Loyola
Law School.
In the meantime, a judge in New York is set to sentence the former
president later this month after holding off on handing down the
punishment ahead of Election Day to avoid any appearance of affecting the
outcome of the presidential race though Trumps lawyers are expected to
ask the judge to put off the sentencing now that hes the president-elect.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Heres what to know about the
four criminal cases:
New York sentencing
Trump is scheduled to appear in a New York courtroom on November 26 to
receive a sentence for his conviction earlier this year on 34 counts of
falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during
the 2016 campaign to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged a prior
affair with the president-elect. (Trump denies the affair.)
Whether that sentencing happens at all remains an open question.
Judge Juan Merchan has given himself a November 12 deadline to decide
whether to wipe away the conviction because of the Supreme Courts
decision this summer granting a president some presidential immunity. If
Merchan does that, the charges would be dismissed, and Trump would not be
sentenced.
Former President Donald Trump emerges to speak at the Palm Beach County
Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Wednesday, November 6,
2024.
But if the judge decides to keep the conviction intact, the former
presidents lawyers are expected to ask Merchan to delay Trumps
sentencing so they can appeal. And if thats not granted, his attorneys
are planning to appeal the immunity decision to state appellate courts and
potentially all the way to the US Supreme Court to ask the courts to delay
Trumps sentencing until all appeals are exhausted, which could take
months.
Should Merchan move ahead with sentencing, Trump could be ordered to serve
as much as four years of prison time, but the judge is not required to
sentence the president-elect to prison, and he could impose a lesser
sentence, such as probation, home confinement, community service or a
fine.
Any sentence, of course, will be complicated by the fact that Trump is set
to take office on January 20, 2025. Trumps lawyers are likely to shape
their appeals to raise constitutional issues challenging whether a state
judge can sentence a president-elect, which could tie the case up in
courts for years.
Since it is a state case, Trump does not have the power to pardon himself
next year after he is sworn into office.
Federal cases in DC and Florida
Trumps election victory is poised to have the greatest impact on the two
federal criminal cases brought against him by Smith in Washington, DC, and
Florida.
Since the cases were brought in 2023, Trumps main legal strategy has been
to delay the trials until past the election so that, if elected, he could
fire Smith, leading to the end of the two cases. In late October, the
former president said he would take such a step without hesitation.
Oh, its so easy. Its so easy, Trump said when asked by conservative
radio host Hugh Hewitt whether he would pardon yourself or fire Jack
Smith if reelected.
I would fire him within two seconds, Trump said.
The discussions between Smith and DOJ leadership are expected to last
several days.
Justice Department officials are looking at options for how to wind down
the two criminal cases while also complying with a 2020 memo from the
departments Office of Legal Counsel about indictments or prosecutions of
sitting presidents.
More than a half-dozen people who are close to the special counsels
office or other top Justice Department officials previously told CNN they
believe Smith doesnt want to close up shop before being ordered to do so
or pushed out by Trump.
Under federal law, Smith must provide a confidential report on his
offices work to the attorney general before he leaves the post.
In the DC case, Smith charged Trump over his efforts to overturn his
election loss in 2020. The case was stalled for months as Trump pressed
federal courts to grant him presidential immunity, and in July the Supreme
Court issued a historic ruling that said he had some immunity from
criminal prosecution.
The federal judge overseeing the trial has been deciding how much of
Trumps conduct at the center of the case is shielded by immunity after
prosecutors last month laid out their arguments for why the ruling should
have no impact on the case.
The charges brought by Smith against the president-elect in Florida accuse
Trump of illegally taking classified documents from the White House and
resisting the governments attempts to retrieve the materials. That case
was thrown out in July by Judge Aileen Cannon, but prosecutors have
appealed her ruling, which said that Attorney General Merrick Garlands
appointment of Smith violated the Constitution.
Georgia RICO case
The immediate fate of Trumps criminal case in Georgia largely hinges on
whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is
disqualified from prosecuting the matter after her prior romantic
relationship with a fellow prosecutor. But even if she is allowed to
continue prosecuting Trump, the case would almost certainly imperiled now
that he has been elected.
The criminal charges again Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020
presidential election results are effectively on hold while the appeals
court decides whether to disqualify Willis, a decision that is not
expected until 2025.
If Willis is removed, sources told CNN they think its unlikely another
prosecutor will want to take up the case and it will effectively go away.
Sources familiar with the case said it is unlikely that a state-level
judge would allow proceedings to continue when Trump is president and, in
that scenario, Trumps attorneys would certainly move to have the case
dismissed.
There is no clear answer as to whether a state-level prosecutor, like
Willis, can prosecute a sitting president. Trumps victory now forces
Willis to confront that constitutional question in addition to the
existing legal issues that have already cast uncertainly over the Georgia
cases future.
Civil suits
The former president is also defending himself in a litany of civil
lawsuits, including ones concerning his role in the January 6, 2021,
attack on the US Capitol, two E. Jean Carroll defamation cases, and a
civil fraud case brought by the New York attorney general where Trump was
ordered to pay nearly $454 million in damages.
In September, state and federal appeals courts in New York heard arguments
for two of Trumps civil appeals.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Palm Beach County Convention
Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6, 2024.
Trump lost two defamation cases to Carroll in 2023 and 2024 in federal
court after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing the onetime
columnist and subsequently defaming her. Two juries awarded Carroll $5
million and $83 million.
A federal appeals court heard Trumps appeal to dismiss the first Carroll
verdict in September. The court has yet to issue a decision.
Later in the month, a state appeals court heard arguments in Trumps
efforts to dismiss the $454 million civil fraud judgement against him, in
which a judge found he, his adult sons and his company fraudulently
inflated the value of Trumps assets to obtain better loan and insurance
rates.
The five-judge appeals court appeared open to at least lowering the fine
levied against Trump, though it also has yet to issue a decision. That
ruling can be appealed to New Yorks highest appellate court.
Trump is also still facing civil lawsuits brought by Democratic lawmakers
and others over his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.
Its possible that all these cases continue to play out even as Trump
serves his second term in the White House. In a 1997 Supreme Court ruling
stemming from a civil lawsuit then-President Bill Clinton was involved in,
the justices unanimously decided that sitting presidents could not invoke
presidential immunity to avoid civil litigation while in office.
CNNs Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/06/politics/what-happens-to-trump-criminal-
cases/index.html
--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.
The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.