Tough Guy

Where the criminal cases against Trump stand

Donald Trump, the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, has been indicted four times this year.

Trump and 18 of his allies were most recently indicted under Georgia’s racketeering law by a grand jury in Fulton County. To date, Trump faces a total of 91 criminal counts.

Here’s a guide to each federal and state case facing Trump, who’s also the current Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race.

Note: These are only the known criminal cases involving the former president. Two civil cases are also proceeding.

The Jan. 6 and 2020 election inquiry

Basics: Related to Trump’s efforts to overturn results of the 2020 election, which led to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in Washington, D.C.Status: Trump was indicted in this case on Aug. 1. He has pleaded not guilty. We await a trial date.

The charges. Trump faces four federal felony charges.

• Conspiracy to defraud the United States, by attempting to overturn a legitimate election.
• Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, by attempting to stop the electoral certification on Jan. 6, 2021.
• Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.(See above.)
• Conspiracy against rights, by attempting to overturn voters’ rightful decision in 2020. This charge comes from a 19th-century post-Civil War law.Who is prosecuting? Department of Justice, led by independent special counsel Jack Smith.

When is the trial? No date has been set yet. The judge in the case will hold a hearing Aug. 28 to decide the trial start date. Which brings us to …The judge. Tanya Chutkan. She is an Obama appointee who wasconfirmed 95-0 in the Senate in 2014. Chutkan was randomly selected from the judges sitting on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Trump has questioned her ability to be unbiased. CNN has reported an increase in security around her.What does the prosecution say? In the grand jury indictment, Smith argued that Trump acted to overturn the 2020 election results and stop the legal transition of power. The indictment listed six unnamed co-conspirators who are accused of working with Trump. No one else has been charged yet, but still could be.This case is NOT directly about Trump inciting the rioting or insurrection on Jan. 6 so much as it is about other actions related to the 2020 vote count and certification of results. That includes an alleged scheme to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the electoral certification as well as attempts to replace legitimate slates of electors.Trump’s defense. Trump’s attorneys argue that their client’s words about the 2020 election were free speech protected by the First Amendment and not conspiracy for fraud. (Sidenote: the special counsel anticipated this. The indictment states that lying is not a crime, but that fraud based on a lie is. See the bottom of pg. 1.)From our reporting, we also know the defense team also will use every legal means to try to get the current judge, who they see as biased, removed from the case. They may propose moving the trial from the heavily Democratic-leaning Washington, D.C. to other states like West Virginia and Virginia. The Trump team is considering arguing that their client cannot get a fair trial anywhere, but that the nation’s capital is especially unfair.

The latest. The two sides’ first legal skirmish is over what evidence Trump’s team can publicly release and discuss in the case. Prosecutors with special counsel Smith’s team have asked for a “protective order” — a standard request in many cases — to keep legal teams from releasing most evidence to the public before trial. Trump’s team said the prosecutors’ request is unusually broad and are pushing for more leeway.

The classified documents case

Basics: Related to Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.
Status: Trump was indicted in this case on June 8. He has pleaded not guilty. Trial date is set for May 20, 2024. Trump waived his appearance at the arraignment for added charges on Thursday. Read the latest superseding indictment here.

The charges. Trump faces 40 federal felony charges, including three new counts added on July 27.

• 32 charges of willful retention of national defense information.Each charge relates to a separate classified document. Note: This charge was a misdemeanor previous to the Trump presidency. He signed a law making it a felony.
• One charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. This charge is that Trump told his attorneys to lie to the FBI about documents in his possession and attempted to delete security footage showing boxes of those documents being moved.
• Four charges of withholding, concealing or scheming to conceal a document. These charges allege that Trump tried to persuade his attorney to help conceal documents and that he moved documents to mislead his attorney and the FBI.
• Two charges of false statements and representation. Here, Trump is accused of setting up lies to the FBI, regarding sworn statements from his attorney and voluntary statements from a worker, which prosecutors say Trump knew to be lies. This testimony, essentially, suggested that Trump had provided access to all documents in his possession, when prosecutors say he had not.
• One charge of altering, destroying or attempting to mutilate an object. This charge is that Trump requested the destruction of security footage showing documents being moved.Who is prosecuting? Again, the DOJ and special counsel Smith.When is the trial? May 20, 2024, is the trial date set by the judge. This trial is set for Fort Pierce, Florida, which is about an hour outside of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
  The judge. Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump in 2020. She was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 56-21, with 23 senators not voting. Cannon garnered attention last year when she agreed with Trump attorneys that a “special master” was needed to independently go through all of the documents Trump had retained. That ruling was reversed in a sharp opinion by an appeals court.What does the prosecution say? The prosecution argues that Trump made repeated efforts to hide and illegally keep classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. They charge that he had boxes moved ahead of an agreed upon FBI visit to retrieve documents and then asked staff to delete security camera footage showing the move.Trump’s defense: We await more specifics on the legal defense here, in part because Trump changed attorneys on this case at the time of the indictment. That said, the public pushback from Trump has focused on accusations that the FBI and DOJ are biased against him.The latest. This week, Cannon asked federal prosecutors to explain why they chose to convene a grand jury in Washington, D.C., for part of this case and then convened a second one to file charges in Florida. Prosecutors are expected to respond by Aug. 22.

  The Manhattan hush-money case

  Basics: Related to falsifying business records involving hush-money payments to conceal alleged affairs during the 2016 presidential election.
  Status: Trump was indicted in this case on March 30. He has pleaded not guilty.

  Read the full indictment and a statement of facts from the prosecutor’s office here.

  The charges. Trump faces 34 New York state felony charges of falsifying records.

• The accusation is that Trump oversaw a scheme to record financial lies in his company’s accounting books. Specifically, that reimbursements for the hush money payments, including a $130,000 pay-off to Stephanie Clifford, the adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels, were legitimate business expenses.
• The 34 counts represent the various ledger entries of the sometimes monthly reimbursements.Who is prosecuting? Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.When is the trial? It is set to start March 25, 2024, in Manhattan.The judge. Juan Manuel Merchan. Initially appointed by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2006, Merchan has spent 16 years on the bench.What does the prosecution say? Bragg argues that Trump knowingly pushed to cover-up tens of thousands of dollars in hush-money payments as legitimate business expenses. Their evidence includes the expected testimony of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, a key witness in the New York investigation who said he arranged the payments and was the person being reimbursed.Trump’s defense. Trump’s team and allies have argued that these charges are politically motivated and should all be misdemeanors — not felonies. They point to outside findings, including this analysisfrom The New York Times, that prosecuting this many “stand-alone” felony charges — that is, charging for falsifying business records and no other crimes — is highly unusual. Trump has also attacked Bragg, especially on social media. Some of those words were so threatening or inciting that the judge in the case barred Trump from posting about it on social media altogether.The latest. Neither the indictment nor the district attorney’s office has specified which other crimes may be elevating the charges to the felony level. Sidenote: Prosecutors do not need to charge or convict Trump on a second crime to escalate charges to the felony level, but must show that there was intent to “commit or conceal” one.

The Georgia election interference inquiry

Basics: This investigation has looked specifically at possible election interference in Georgia.
Status: Trump was indicted in this case on Aug. 14.
Read the full Georgia indictment against Trump and 18 allies here.

The charges. There are 41 counts against all 19 defendants. This includes 13 charges against Trump.

The indictment says these individuals — and others who are unnamed and unindicted — “unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere.

Who are the other 18? The defendants named in the indictment include some high-profile members of Trump’s inner circle:

• Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff
• Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer (and believed to be one of the six, unnamed co-conspirators listed in the federal Jan. 6 indictment)
• There are some familiar names previously mentioned in the Jan. 6 hearings: attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman, former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark and former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro.
• Several Georgia officials, including David Shafer, the state GOP chairman who served as a fake Trump elector at the time.
• Beyond the 19 individuals indicted, the document says there are 30 additional unnamed co-conspirators.What’s the RICO Act? The counts against Trump and co. include violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The federal RICO law has been used to go after organized crime. The state’s RICO statute is one of the nation’s broadest, White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López explains. RICO allows prosecutors to put together a variety of alleged crimes committed to show that a group or enterprise carried out a wide-ranging conspiracy.
  Who is prosecuting? Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. She won election in 2020 and took office in 2021.
  When is the trial? Willis said she would seek a trial date within the next six months. (Although that timing may be optimistic, according to some experts.)What does the prosecution say? Prosecutors listed 161 acts that they say amount to a larger conspiracy, including a false testimony from Guiliani about election fraud to state lawmakers and Trump’s call to Raffensperger to “find” some 11,700 votes. Willis said her office plans to try all 19 defendants together. Those charged in the case, she said, have until noon Aug. 25 to surrender in Fulton County.Trump’s defense. Trump and several of the allies indicted havedenied the charges or criticized prosecutors. Trump, who has attacked prosecutors leading other investigations into his actions, has categorized the latest charges against him as part of an effort to stop his 2024 campaign. His lawyers in the case said in a statement: “We look forward to a detailed review of this indictment, which is undoubtedly just as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process has been.”A key difference. Unlike the federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith earlier this month, Trump could not pardon himself or attempt to shut down this investigation if he is reelected president next year.

I personally hope this ass-wipe and his corrupt buddies rot in jail for crimes against America. Just sayin’…