Former President Donald Trump would have several ways to derail the federal legal cases against him if he is reelected, legal experts say, but the two cases brought under state laws present different challenges.
Mr. Trump faces four prosecutions charging him with crimes related to the 2016 campaign, the 2020 election and classified documents found in his home after he left office.
The prosecutors in the cases are pushing for early trials. If Mr. Trump returns to the White House before verdicts are rendered, he could shut down the federal cases.
Mr. Trump could order his appointed attorney general to disband the special counsel and drop the charges altogether.
“I am skeptical that either one of these cases can actually go to trial before next year’s election,” said Joseph Moreno, a former federal prosecutor. “As long as Trump has not been convicted … and then becomes president, I am fairly certain he could stop the process.”
As president, Mr. Trump could pardon himself even before trial. That is known as a preemptive pardon.
He posted on Twitter in 2018 that he has “the absolute right to PARDON myself.” He reportedly pondered the idea in 2020, before leaving office, but never took action.
A self-pardon would be an unprecedented flex of the Constitution’s pardon power, which grants a president wide latitude to issue clemency except in cases of impeachment.
The question then would be whether anyone could show sufficient legal injury to have standing to challenge the pardon and win a court ruling to overturn it.
“I don’t think anybody could stop it,” Mr. Moreno said.
Mr. Trump’s legal team declined to comment for this report.
“That’s privileged information, and I can’t talk about it,” said Alina Habba, a spokesperson for the former president on his legal challenges.
As president, Mr. Trump could argue that he is immune from prosecution. A decades-old Justice Department policy against charging a sitting president with a crime was raised during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into suspected collusion with Russia during the 2016 election campaign.
Putting Mr. Trump on state trial while president would create a “constitutional crisis,” said Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project and a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.
“Federal law mandates that the president, the former president, and the president-elect have Secret Service protection. Do these local Democrat DAs think they’re going to put these Secret Service agents in the jail cell with President Trump?” Mr. Davis said.
Mr. Trump plans to surrender to authorities in Fulton County, Georgia, on Thursday for booking on felonies related to efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. The former president said Wednesday that he will be “proudly arrested.”
“Nobody has ever fought for election integrity like President Donald J. Trump,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Mr. Moreno said a president could ignore the state charges and avoid that jurisdiction, but perhaps the more appropriate route for a state would be to present its case to Congress.
“Ask Congress to impeach and remove the president, and then the state can go for it,” he said.
Special counsel Jack Smith has brought two sets of charges against Mr. Trump at the federal level. One case accuses him of keeping secret documents that should have been turned over to the government. The case is pending in the Southern District of Florida with a trial date scheduled for May, though experts say it will likely be delayed further into the election year.
Mr. Smith’s other case accuses the former president of fueling chaos by intentionally misleading the country about the 2020 election and pushing for Congress and states to overturn the results that put President Biden in office.
That case is pending in the District of Columbia, but a trial date has not been set. It also could be delayed close to or beyond the election.
“Delay is always to his advantage,” said Elliot Mincberg, a senior fellow at the liberal advocacy group People For the American Way. “He can pretty surely get out of the federal offenses if he is elected.”
New York has charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records concerning hush payments to two women and a hotel doorman.
In Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney has charged Mr. Trump and 18 other people with crimes related to his effort to have Georgia overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the state in 2020.
Mr. Mincberg said those cases are more challenging for Mr. Trump.
“He doesn’t have power at the state level even if he becomes president,” Mr. Mincberg said.
Mr. Trump would have to rely on state pardon boards. New York and Georgia typically require the convicted person to serve part of their sentence before receiving a pardon.
It’s unclear whether a governor could order that a state prosecution be dropped. A Democratic governor in New York is unlikely to suspend the state’s charges against a Republican president.
Mr. Moreno said the chance that Mr. Trump would serve prison time is small. He said a state is unlikely to imprison a former president who is almost 80 years old.
“I don’t know how that serves the system of justice,” he said.
He suggested that Mr. Trump would be sentenced to house arrest or probation if convicted.
• Jeff Mordock and Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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