A New York judge is set to decide the fate of former President Donald Trump’s business empire in a civil case that accuses the Trump Organization of rampant fraud, kicking off a wild 2024 that will force Mr. Trump to split his time between the courtroom and campaign trail.
Closing arguments scheduled for Thursday will end a weekslong trial that featured nasty exchanges between Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner for president, and Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York.
The trial is only the start of the legal drama that will envelop Mr. Trump as he eyes a rematch with President Biden.
Mr. Trump faces more than 90 charges in four criminal cases along the East Coast.
The Supreme Court is getting involved. Special counsel Jack Smith wants the justices to decide whether Mr. Trump can claim presidential immunity against charges that he conspired against the U.S. by trying to overturn what he called a rigged election in 2020.
Colorado wants the high court to consider state-by-state decisions to ban Mr. Trump from the ballot under a part of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that disqualifies insurrectionists from holding federal office.
All this will collide with the election season, which begins Jan. 15 with the Iowa caucuses.
Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and says the trials are part of a coordinated attempt to thwart his presidential bid.
New York trial puts Mr. Trump’s legacy-defining brand on the line
Judge Arthur Engoron will decide in the coming weeks whether Mr. Trump, his elder sons and their real estate company submitted fraudulent financial statements to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance.
Ms. James says the Trump Organization did that for years in a sweeping pattern of fraud. She is seeking a fine of $300 million and wants to prohibit the Trump family from doing business in New York.
Judge Engoron ruled in favor of Ms. James on one of her claims before the trial, delivering an early blow to Mr. Trump before a decision on the remaining claims and possible damages.
The acrimonious trial offered a preview of how Mr. Trump will use the courthouse as a stage for his presidential campaign and put to rest any belief that he will tone down his rhetoric while he faces the justice system.
Judge Engoron’s decision could land between the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23 and the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 8. It won’t put Mr. Trump in prison, but it could strike at the foundation of the former president’s image as a profitable man who turned his business acumen into a road map for successful political leadership.
Special counsel tries to speed up election subversion case in Washington
The first criminal trial on Mr. Trump’s calendar is a marquee showdown with Mr. Smith, the special counsel, over a federal indictment that accuses him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results with a pressure campaign on state officials and alternative electors.
Mr. Trump faces four criminal charges: one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., one count of conspiracy to violate civil rights and two counts of attempting to obstruct the vote certification proceedings.
The case is being presented in the District of Columbia, a Democratic stronghold where the jury pool might not be sympathetic to Mr. Trump.
The trial is scheduled to start March 4, or one day before the Super Tuesday primaries in which voters in California, Texas and more than a dozen other states will head to the polls. The trial is unlikely to start on time as Mr. Trump claims he is immune from the charges because it covers a period when he was president.
In court papers, the special counsel said Mr. Trump’s claim would mean that nothing could keep a president “from inciting his supporters during a State of the Union address to kill opposing lawmakers — thereby hamstringing any impeachment proceeding — to ensure that he remains in office unlawfully.”
“The implications of the defendant’s broad immunity theory are sobering,” Mr. Smith’s team wrote.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is set to hear oral arguments on the issue Tuesday. Mr. Smith wanted to fast-track the debate to the Supreme Court, though the justices said it should go to the appeals court first.
“They waited almost three years to bring this hoax ‘case’ and are now desperately trying, and failing, to rush it because they know President Trump is dominating the election,” the Trump campaign said last month.
The delay means the federal case might not start before a state trial on charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in Mr. Trump’s old stomping grounds.
New York time machine: Manhattan trial focuses on payments before 2016 election
With Mr. Smith caught in pretrial limbo, prosecutors in New York might beat him to a trial.
Mr. Bragg and his team were the first prosecutors to indict Mr. Trump last year. They said he paid adult-film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to cover up an alleged sexual encounter before the 2016 election, a second woman who said she had an affair with him and a doorman who pushed an unproven story that Mr. Trump had a child out of wedlock.
The case hinges on claims that Mr. Trump concealed the payments through reimbursements to his attorney turned accuser Michael Cohen as part of an attempt to avoid bad press before the election. Mr. Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in that contest and served one term as president.
The indictment charges Mr. Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a low-level felony in New York.
The trial is scheduled to begin March 25. A successful first prosecution could set an ominous tone for Mr. Trump’s year. On the flip side, voters could see it as a lightweight distraction.
Trump finds favorable terrain in Florida, but will it be enough to duck docs charges?
Mr. Trump moved from New York to Florida during his presidency. The state offers him sunny climes to hold a post-presidency court from his estate in Palm Beach.
Yet prosecutors say his penchant for hoarding sensitive government papers at the sprawling residence, which also functions as a social club, violated federal law. Investigators raided the estate in August 2022 after archivists suspected classified documents were sent from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
Mr. Smith secured an indictment charging Mr. Trump with more than 40 counts, including 32 counts of unauthorized retention of national security secrets, seven counts of obstructing efforts to retrieve the documents and three counts of making false statements.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has ruled in favor of the former president in the past. Mr. Trump’s detractors are worried that the judge will delay the trial or otherwise benefit him, though she has affirmed a trial date of May 20 in Fort Pierce.
The jury pool likely would be more favorable to Mr. Trump than in his federal case in the District of Columbia. Potential jurors would be drawn from districts that are politically mixed or lean conservative.
“With the political ramifications of these prosecutions and the polarization of the country, the potential jury pool for each case is extremely important for the outcomes,” said Thomas Hogan, a visiting assistant professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.
Even selecting a jury will be difficult, given the looming election.
“How do prosecutors and defense lawyers factor in inflation, the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars, and local political fights when deciding which jurors to strike?” Mr. Hogan said. “These are issues which do not require consideration in a run-of-the-mill armed robbery or drug trafficking case, but which could affect jurors’ views in these cases.”
The trial in Florida might start far later than May, given thorny pretrial issues around reviewing classified documents. If the date holds, the trial would unfold less than two months before the July 15-18 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Georgia on everyone’s mind
The election subversion case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis stands unique among the Trump-related cases. It involves more than a dozen alleged co-conspirators instead of just Mr. Trump or a few aides. Prosecutors are leveraging statutes under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to paint a sweeping narrative about efforts to flip the state out of Mr. Biden’s column.
Pretrial wrangling has been livestreamed from Judge Scott McAfee’s courtroom, a contrast with staid federal proceedings without electronics, and three former attorneys have flipped on Mr. Trump.
The indictment accuses the former president of 13 counts, including a violation of Georgia racketeering laws, solicitation of a violation of an oath by a public officer, and several counts related to alleged conspiracies to commit forgery, make false statements and writings or make false filings.
Eighteen co-defendants face an assortment of charges, 41 in all, that at times overlap with those against Mr. Trump.
Former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors.
No trial date has been set for the Georgia case as the courts work through a tangle of issues, including whether former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows can move his claims to federal court.
Pretrial drama has included an attempt by Ms. Willis to revoke the bail of co-defendant Harrison Floyd for posting a series of mean tweets, including poop-emoji symbols, that seemed to violate his terms of release. Judge McAfee didn’t put Mr. Floyd in jail but asked attorneys to tighten language in the bond agreement.
Colorado chaos and more
The Colorado Supreme Court delivered a stunning pre-Christmas decision by ruling that Mr. Trump is disqualified from the state’s March 5 primary ballot because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Maine’s secretary of state, a Democrat, unilaterally removed Mr. Trump from the ballot for its primary, also on March 5. The state ballot decisions, like the presidential immunity matter, are careening toward a date in the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning the justices likely will weigh two issues that could determine the course of Mr. Trump’s political future.
Ross Baker, a politics professor at Rutgers University, said the Supreme Court will likely let Mr. Trump remain on the ballot. He said the decision could signal “rough weather” for Mr. Smith’s election subversion case because the justices would give a general impression that Mr. Trump was not an insurrectionist.
That would leave the documents case in Florida as Mr. Smith’s “best shot at finding Trump derelict,” Mr. Baker said.
The Florida case might not be as simple as it looks.
“The prosecution is going to be forced to deal with the fact that just about every former high-ranking government official — including President Biden and former Vice President [Mike] Pence — has retained some classified documents,” Mr. Hogan said.
Prosecutors in Georgia have certain advantages, including evidence of Mr. Trump leaning on state officials in phone calls. The structure of the case also could help prosecutors.
“Conspiracy cases are notoriously difficult to defend, as the agreement itself paired with overt acts by any of the co-conspirators ends up with a conviction for everybody,” Mr. Hogan said.
One big question looming over the presidential election is whether Mr. Trump’s legal troubles will cost him political support.
So far, it doesn’t appear to have an impact on the Republican primary electorate. If anything, his ordeal is helping Mr. Trump attract more support and maintain double-digit leads over his nearest challengers, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
House Republican leaders have lined up to endorse Mr. Trump ahead of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
Other Republicans say Mr. Trump is a liability in a general election and voters should turn to a new candidate against Mr. Biden, who is 81 and has low approval ratings.
The SFA Fund, a super PAC backing Ms. Haley, says Mr. Trump has a 50-50 chance against Mr. Biden while Ms. Haley leads the president by double digits in some polls.
“Republicans have a clear choice,” PAC spokeswoman Brittany Yanick said. “They can either roll the dice on Donald Trump or pick the candidate who will definitively defeat Joe Biden in 2024 — Nikki Haley.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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