will he be able to escape all his legal problems?

Friday 08th November 2024 05:34 AM

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– Donald Trump faces prosecution in four cases.

A comeback… before a detour to prison? Donald Trump won the American presidential election on November 5, 2024. With more than 270 electors, the minimum required to win, the former president thus won victory over the 538 electors in the United States. As of January 20, the billionaire will be back at the White House, even though he is entangled in four criminal proceedings.

His re-election to the American presidency protects him from his legal troubles, having already managed to postpone the majority of his criminal trials beyond the crucial date of November 5. In 2024, he faced four legal proceedings, but was only convicted once, in the case of falsification of the accounts of the 2016 electoral campaign.

The affair of the falsification of 2016 campaign accounts, soon to be dismissed?

Anne Deysine, a specialist in legal issues in the United States, points out: among these “four cases”, two are “federal” and the other two are “state”, one in Georgia and the other in New York. The latter is the most problematic for Donald Trump. Indeed, this is the only trial that his lawyers failed to postpone until after the presidential election and in which he was convicted. The now new President of the United States risks up to 4 years in prison in connection with this affair. Sentencing postponed to November 26.

As a reminder, on May 30, 2024, Donald Trump was found guilty by the courts of the State of New York of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a plot to pervert the 2016 election”. In order to influence the 2016 election campaign, the billionaire paid $130,000, disguised as a fee, to former porn star Stormy Daniels to keep silent about a sexual relationship she said she had had with Donald Trump in 2006.

For Anne Deysine, the “Donald Trump's lawyers will certainly ask for the case to be postponed until the end of the new president's term. “The judge can accept it or sentence Trump to a symbolic sentence, but the future president will never go to prison”says the author of Judges Against America, the Radical Right's Capture of the Supreme Court (Nanterre University Press). Furthermore, the American Department of Justice has adopted a policy for more than 50 years aimed at not prosecuting a sitting president.

Towards the end of the federal prosecutions brought by Jack Smith, the prosecutor in charge of these cases?

Donald Trump is being prosecuted in two federal proceedings that he could easily escape. The first is the attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. The prosecution accuses him in particular of disseminating false information about fraud and voting machines, conspiracy to obstruct an official procedure as well as to have “exploited” violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In this case, the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, granted this summer the “presumption of immunity” to acts related to the presidential function, “concluding the virtual immunity of Trump and future presidents”specifies Anne Deysine. “Until this decision, it was thought that the president could be prosecuted after his term for unofficial acts. But the Court, after a very narrow definition of private acts, then set very difficult conditions of proof for the prosecutor.continues the specialist. This decision changed the course of the legal procedure forcing the special prosecutor in charge of the case, Jack Smith, to review the indictment against Donald Trump, delaying, in the process, the trial which has still not taken place.

The prosecutor is also in charge of the second federal procedure relating to the retention of classified documents after Donald Trump's departure from the White House. Justice found government documents in the billionaire's residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. The trial was to take place on May 20, 2024. It was initially postponed before Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Donald Trump in 2020, decided to cancel the criminal proceedings against the businessman. She found that the appointment of prosecutor Jack Smith was unconstitutional. The latter appealed the decision. For Anne Deysine, “the decision of the Court of Appeal will come too late”.

To save himself from these two affairs, Donald Trump will surely “ask his future minister of justice to put an end to the prosecution”considers Anne Deysine. Jack Smith himself could wrap up his work before Trump “dismantles his team.” Donald Trump also indicated at the end of October that he wanted, if elected, “turn in two seconds” the prosecutor. “If Jack Smith's report is published, there will certainly be no conviction, but at least the matter in all its seriousness will be brought before public opinion.she adds.