With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, what happens to the legal proceedings against him?

By representing himself before the voters to return to the head of the American executive power, Donald J. Trump did not only have in mind serving the interests of his country, but also his own. The former – and now next – president of the United States is the subject of accusations brought in four separate cases. However, his return to the Oval Office next January should put an end to at least two of the four proceedings initiated against him, and jeopardizes the legal survival of the other two cases.

The attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election on January 6, 2021

Indicted since August 2, 2023 for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the certification of the results by Congress on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump should no longer be worried by these serious accusations of “conspiracy against the United States”.

The special prosecutor, Jack Smith, who is investigating this case and the matter of concealment of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago residence, asked a judge in Washington on Friday, November 8 to suspend the legal proceedings until December 2 for “give the government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the best course of action.”

The U.S. Department of Justice prohibits a sitting president from being indicted by the federal judiciary. This policy, in effect since 1973, prevents federal prosecutors from indicting the President of the United States on the grounds that such an indictment “would unconstitutionally undermine the ability of the executive branch to exercise its functions”.

During his campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to “fire” Mr. Smith. After his inauguration on January 20, the new president is expected to appoint an attorney general who could order the criminal charges to be dropped and fire the special prosecutor.

In early 2029, at the end of his second term, Mr. Trump will once again become a citizen subject to legal action, but the Supreme Court's decision of 1^is July 2024, which significantly expanded the criminal immunity enjoyed by the president, could complicate possible subsequent prosecutions. With the re-election of the president, it is not known whether the indictment, which was revised by Jack Smith's team in August 2024 after this decision, could have passed the pitches of the Supreme Court, the probable appeals of the Trump's lawyers and lead to a trial.

The concealment of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago

The case of the concealment of government documents in Mr. Trump's Florida residence should meet the same fate as that linked to the events of January 6, 2021. The difference is that the proceedings were already abandoned in July 2024 in this case. Federal judge Aileen Cannon ruled, going against twenty-five years of federal jurisprudence, that special prosecutor Jack Smith had been appointed illegally.

Smith's team appealed the decision on August 26. With the accused returning to power, the challenge of this appeal – still ongoing – is no longer so much to resurrect the case to continue prosecuting Mr. Trump, but to invalidate Judge Cannon's decision, which risks weakening the ability of the judiciary to appoint special prosecutors.

The legality of Judge Cannon's decision was heavily criticized last summer, and attracted even more attention as Ms.^me Cannon was appointed by Donald Trump in May 2020 and this was not the judge's first surprising decision in favor of the former president; to the point where many observers and former federal judges have publicly expressed doubts about the impartiality of Mr.^me Cannon, whose name is currently being circulated as a possible frontrunner for the post of attorney general of the United States, according to ABC News.

The attempted electoral fraud in 2020 in Georgia

In this case, Donald Trump is accused, alongside 14 other people, of trying to change the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, and of subverting the vote of his voters. After a two-and-a-half year investigation by the office of Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis, Mr. Trump was indicted in August 2023 by a grand jury on 13 counts.

But unlike the files linked to the events of January 6, 2021 and classified documents, Trump is not being prosecuted by federal justice but by the justice of the state of Georgia. However, the federal justice department in Washington has no power over the state justice system. Likewise, in the very hypothetical case where Mr. Trump is sentenced to a sentence by a state judge before taking office on January 20, 2025, he would not be able to pardon himself, since this power does not is applicable only to federal convictions. Only the state governor has this power. This is why Mr. Trump's lawyers have tried, since the summer of 2023, to take the matter out of the hands of Fani Willis and make it a federal case. In vain.

The future of the case remains very uncertain at the moment. Experts say it is unlikely that a state judge will authorize Willis to prosecute Mr. Trump once he becomes president again, for the same constitutional reasons that push the Justice Department to 'ban at the federal level.

The prosecution's case could therefore be frozen as long as Mr. Trump is president. But even if paused, the proceedings may not survive the attacks from Donald Trump's lawyers.

Two levers are available to them. The first is to disqualify Fani Willis to take the file out of his hands. Donald Trump's lawyers made a first request in January 2024, but the judge in charge of the case, Scott McAfee, rejected them. They appealed and the procedure is still ongoing, with the hearing of each party's arguments scheduled for December 5. The decision is not expected before March 2025. If Mr. Trump's defense succeeds in dismissing Mr.^me Willis, many legal experts believe no other state prosecutor will take up the case.

If Mr. Trump's appeal fails, it is likely that the case will go to the Georgia State Supreme Court for a final decision. And even if the lawyers are unable to remove Fani Willis from the case, the chances of a trial will diminish over time.

Falsification of accounts during the 2016 presidential campaign

Donald Trump was the first former president convicted in a criminal case. On May 30, in the so-called “Stormy Daniels” case, a New York City grand jury retained the 34 counts against him.

New York Judge Juan Merchan had initially scheduled sentencing for July 11, but the Supreme Court's decision of July 1^is July on the criminal immunity of former presidents forced the judge to postpone the announcement of the sentence until September 18, then a second time to November 26. The magistrate must first rule on November 12 on the very possibility of pronouncing a sentence. Mr. Trump's lawyers could then challenge his decision by claiming that the president-elect must be able to benefit from the same protection as the outgoing president or by requesting a new additional period (or both).

If, however, Judge Merchan were to impose a sentence, experts agree that a prison sentence for Donald Trump would likely be deemed unconstitutional, according to the Financial Times. It is therefore possible that the judge will not be able to impose a sentence before Mr. Trump leaves the White House. But even if sentenced to another sentence, it is almost certain that the future president would appeal. At the same time, his lawyers asked the Second Circuit of the United States federal courts of appeals to remove, like the Georgian case, the case from the hands of local justice to make it a federal case, which would then be within reach of Mr. Trump's government.