A guide to Trump’s 78 felony charges. Plus, what this means for 2024.
Another grand jury has indicted Donald J. Trump.
Assuming Trump is convicted of even one felony charge, what does that mean for his presidential aspirations?
How many courtrooms are facing a Trump trial and all that comes with those two words: personal attacks, personal threats, and amped up courtroom security?
For context, it is important to remember that Trump is the first former president to be charged with a federal crime. No major political party presidential nominee has been charged with a felony.
1. U.S. District Court, District of Columbia: four felonies
Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith announced on August 1, 2023 that a grand jury had indicated Trump on four (4) felony counts:
- 18 USC 371, conspiracy to defraud the US
- 18 USC 1512(k), conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding (Senate certification of the electoral vote)
- 18 USC 1512(c)(2), obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding (Senate certification of the electoral vote)
- 18 USC 241, conspiracy against rights (the right to vote and have one’s vote counted)
On Thursday, August 3, Trump is slated to appear at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan will oversee these latest charges.
According to AP, Chutkan “has consistently taken the hardest line against Jan. 6 defendants of any judge serving on Washington’s federal trial court.”
Chutkan has handed out tougher sentences than the department was seeking in seven cases, matched its requests in four others and sent all 11 riot defendants who have come before her behind bars. In the four cases in which prosecutors did not seek jail time, Chutkan gave terms ranging from 14 days to 45 days.
Like the Florida case that preceded this one, Smith presented a “speaking indictment”. These detailed indictments explain the charges in a manner suitable for non-attorneys.
From Time: Tuesday’s charges reflect a “remarkable escalation” in Trump’s legal challenges. And yet:
A thrice-indicted, convicted sexual abuser, alleged election interferer and wealth fabulist is on course to coast to the general election, past capable governors, investors, ambassadors, and even his own former Vice President.
These charges carry a maximum sentence of 55 years. No trial date has been set.
2. U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida: 40 felonies
Federal investigators found more than 11,000 White House documents being held illegally at Mar-A-Lago.
On June 9, 2023, the DOJ special counsel released the results of a grand jury investigation: 37 felony charges related to his possession of federal government property, specifically 31 classified documents.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the 37 charges.
On July 27, 2023, the DOJ added three felonies related to Trump’s alleged attempts to delete security camera archives.
“Attempting to delete the surveillance footage has not only obstruction of justice ramifications but will also be useful to prosecutors in demonstrating consciousness of guilt,” James Sample, a professor at Hofstra University’s School of Law, told Salon. “It is the consciousness of guilt that is particularly compelling. Innocent parties don’t take steps to delete evidence of innocence.”
The maximum prison sentence for the original charges is 330 years, according to Marcy Wheeler. The three new felony charges carry a maximum of 50 years additional sentence, according to Politico.
Just Security analyzed the case and concluded that the evidence is overwhelming as presented.
There is sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction here, if the information gleaned from government filings and statements and voluminous public reporting is accurate.
Judge Aileen Cannon has scheduled the trial for May 2024.
Max: 380 years
3. Office of the Manhattan District Attorney, 34 felonies
In March 2023, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump in a case surrounding payments to Stormy Daniels.
This is the first time a former U.S. president has faced a criminal indictment.
In court documents unsealed April 4, prosecutors alleged Trump engaged in a “scheme” to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments made by others and repeated falsification of New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the 34 felony count indictment on April 3, 2023. New York City Judge Juan Merchan later imposed “a protective order against Trump that is meant to ensure evidence shared by the DA’s office doesn’t wind up on the internet.”
On July 19, 2023, federal judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Trump’s attempt to move this criminal case into federal court. Federal charges can be mitigated by a presidential pardon; state or local charges cannot.
Each count carries a sentence of up to four years in prison; that’s 136 years.
The next hearing is scheduled for December 4.
Expected trial date: March 25, 2024 in New York
Max: 136 years
4. Fulton County Georgia Superior Court, indictment pending
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told reporters she expects to “announce charging decisions” by September 2, 2023.
The threats and harassment have begun:
Over the weekend, Willis shared at least one message with Fulton County commissioners and staffers in the county’s judicial system, including Chief Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville and Keith Gammage, Fulton Solicitor-General.
The email ‘s title read “Fani Willis-Corrupt (N-word).” Its body read, “You are going to fail, you Jim Crow Democrat w***e.” Willis said she received the email Friday.
“It is not very unique,” Willis emailed her colleagues. “In fact, it is pretty typical and what I have come to expect. I am also aware of some equally ignorant voice mails coming in both to the county customer service and my office. I expect to see many more over the next 30 days … I guess I am sending this as a reminder that you should stay alert over the month of August and stay safe.”
Staff began installing security barriers in late July.
5. New York State Attorney General, civil case
On September 21, 2022, New York attorney general Letitia James “filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, senior management, and involved entities for engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits.”
The state is seeking $250,000,000 as well as “sanctions that would effectively cease the company’s operations in New York.”
New York State judge Arthur Engoron has set the trial for October 2, 2023.
6. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, E. Jean Carroll civil cases
In May, a jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $5,000,000 in her battery and defamation claim against Trump. On July 19, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made it clear that in lay terms, Trump had raped Carroll.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
A second federal defamation trial is set for January 15, 2024.
Carroll is seeking $10,000,000. U.S. District Judge Kaplan is again presiding.
What does this avalanche of lawsuits portend for 2024?
In no particular order, answers to common questions follow:
- Can Trump run for president if convicted of a felony?
The consensus is yes because the U.S. Constitution has three requirements to be president.The president must be
- A natural born citizen,
- At least 35 years old, and
- A resident of the US for at least 14 years.
Moreover, it has been done before.
In 1920, Eugene V. Debs ran while serving “a 10-year federal sentence for urging people to resist the World War I draft.” And 3 percent of the voting public cast their ballots for him.
- Are multiple charges like we see in these cases common?
No.
According to Harvard Law Review, from 2004 to 2019, the federal government prosecuted more than 2,500,000 defendants. Two-thirds faced only one felony charge. Only 7 percent faced five or more counts. - Can Trump vote if convicted of a felony?
Florida prohibits felons from voting while serving their sentence. - If Trump is convicted, will he go to prison?
Trump is currently facing 77 felony counts and a maximum sentence of 516 years in prison.There are currently three cases where a prison sentence could be the end result, and a fourth where that is probable (Georgia). In each instance, the trial judge would make the decision on sentencing.
In the New York case, defense attorneys told Insider that “that it is beyond rare for a defendant in New York” to serve time for charges like these: non-violent, E felony, no identifiable victim.
“If there was anyone who would be incarcerated over this type of crime, it would be an elected official,” said former Manhattan prosecutor, Jeremy Saland, now a lawyer in private practice. “That said, to think for a moment that Trump is going to be incarcerated? That would shock me, for practical reasons and for reasons of allowing anger and divisiveness to fester.”
In the Florida classified documents case, the precedent is prison.
For example, in 2016 the FBI found classified documents at the home of national security contractor Harold Martin. Margin pleaded guilty. His sentence? Nine years in prison.
Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb told CNN in May that he believed Trump will be convicted and go to prison in the Florida documents case.
Nevertheless, Paul Collins, a legal studies and political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Salon that “if the former president is found guilty and does not strike some kind of a sentencing deal, he may die in prison given his age.”
However, Trump has Secret Service protection. How could they protect him if he were imprisoned?
This is uncharted territory.
- If Trump is convicted, should he go to prison?
An early July Ipsos poll found that “a plurality of Americans think Trump should be imprisoned” if convicted in the Florida documents case or the New York business records case.
Conservative attorney George Conway told CNN in June that he believes Trump will be convicted in the Florida documents case.
“Given the fact that he shows no remorse and no willingness to bear any responsibility for his misconduct, I think that a substantial sentence of incarceration is in order,” he said. Conway continued:
Now, the question will be, what kind of security can be provided for a former president in a US Bureau of Prisons facility? I don’t really know what — how they’re going to handle that, but I think there’s every reason to believe that they’re going to want to work something out where he is not able to walk the streets. He can, at a minimum, they could use some kind of home detention at one of his residences.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson argues that given the August 1 indictment, successful prosecution is needed to preserve democracy.
The prosecution of former president Trump…will defend the rights of the victims—those who gave their lives as well as all of us whose votes were attacked—by establishing the truth in place of lies. That realistic view should enable us to recommit to the principles on which we want our nation to rest.
Donald Trump tried to destroy “the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured…by the Constitution and laws of the United States—that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.” Such an effort must be addressed, and doing it within the parameters of our legal system should reestablish the very institutions Trump loyalists are trying to undermine.
NOTE: All numbers converted from words ($2 billion) to numbers ($2,000,000,000).
Featured image: caricature via MidJourney with prompt by KATHY GILL
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