The Cases Against Trump: A Guide
8 min read
The first former president to be convicted of a felony is now also the first convicted felon to be elected as president.
Donald Trump won reelection on November 5, paving the way for his return to the White House—as well as the end or postponement of the criminal cases against him. The extent to which those cases also paved the way for his return to the White House will be a topic of debate for years. One plausible argument is that the sense that Trump was being persecuted strengthened his support; another is that the failure to bring cases sooner and finish them deprived voters of complete information. Both may be true.
A judge indicated on January 3 that he would sentence Trump on January 10 for his conviction on charges related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, but would grant the president-elect an “unconditional discharge,” which avoids probation or jail time and does not require Trump to meet any further qualifications, such as steady employment or not reoffending. This rejects Trump’s attempt to have the case thrown out and means he remains a felon, but otherwise closes out the matter.
This was the only live criminal matter facing Trump. Federal cases against Trump related to attempting to subvert the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were both dismissed at the Justice Department’s request in late 2024. The documents case, long considered the most straightforward, was bottled up by a Trump-appointed judge on dubious procedural grounds. The election-subversion case took a detour to the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority ran down the clock before ruling that a president has very broad immunity for most acts done as president.
An election-subversion case in Fulton County, Georgia, is in indefinite limbo after a panel of state judges on December 19 removed District Attorney Fani Willis from the case, citing an “appearance of impropriety” in her relationship with a special prosecutor on the case.
What follows is a summary of the major legal cases against Trump, assessments of the gravity of the charges, and a prognosis for each. This guide will be updated as necessary.
New York State: Fraud
In the fall of 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil suit against Trump, his adult sons, and his former aide Allen Weisselberg, alleging a years-long scheme in which Trump fraudulently reported the value of properties in order to either lower his tax bill or improve the terms of his loans, all with an eye toward inflating his net worth.
When?
Justice Arthur Engoron ruled on February 16 that Trump must pay $355 million plus interest, the calculated size of his ill-gotten gains from fraud. The judge had previously ruled against Trump and his co-defendants in late September 2023, concluding that many of the defendants’ claims were “clearly” fraudulent—so clearly that he didn’t need a trial to hear them.
How grave was the allegation?
Fraud is fraud, and in this case, the sum of the fraud stretched into the hundreds of millions—but compared with some of the other legal matters in which Trump is embroiled, this is a little pedestrian. The case was also civil rather than criminal. But although the stakes are lower for the nation, they remain high for Trump: The size of the penalty appears to be larger than Trump can easily pay, and he also faces a three-year ban on operating his company.
What happens now?
On March 25, the day he was supposed to post bond, an appeals court reduced the amount he must post from more than $464 million to $175 million. Trump has appealed the case. In a September hearing, New York appeals-court judges seemed skeptical of the case against Trump and sympathetic to his arguments. They have not yet ruled.
Manhattan: Defamation and Sexual Assault
Although these other cases are all brought by government entities, Trump also faced a pair of defamation suits from the writer E. Jean Carroll, who said that Trump sexually assaulted her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s. When he denied it, she sued him for defamation and later added a battery claim.
When?
In May 2023, a jury concluded that Trump had sexually assaulted and defamed Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. A second defamation case produced an $83.3 million judgment in January 2024.
How grave was the allegation?
Although these cases didn’t directly connect to the same fundamental issues of rule of law and democratic governance that some of the criminal cases do, they were a serious matter, and a federal judge’s blunt statement that Trump raped Carroll has gone underappreciated.
What happens now?
Trump appealed both cases and posted bond for the $83.3 million in March. His appeal in the $5 million case was rejected on December 30.
Manhattan: Hush Money
In March 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg became the first prosecutor to bring felony charges against Trump, alleging that the former president had falsified business records as part of a scheme to pay hush money to women who said they’d had sexual relationships with Trump.
When?
The trial began on April 15 and ended with a May 30 conviction. Trump will be sentenced on January 10.
How grave was the allegation?
Many people have analogized this case to Al Capone’s conviction on tax evasion: It’s not that he didn’t deserve it, but it wasn’t really why he was an infamous villain. Trump did deserve it, and he’s now a convicted felon. Moreover, although the charges were about falsifying records, those records were falsified to keep information from the public as it voted in the 2016 election. It was among the first of Trump’s many attacks on fair elections. (His two impeachments were also for efforts to undermine the electoral process.) If at times this case felt more minor compared with the election-subversion or classified-documents cases, it’s because those other cases set a grossly high standard.
What happens now?
On January 3, Justice Juan Merchan scheduled sentencing for January 10, but indicated that he would likely sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge, which means no jail or probation time, and no other requirements to meet.
Department of Justice: Mar-a-Lago Documents
Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with 37 felonies in connection with his removal of documents from the White House when he left office, but Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the case, finding that Smith’s appointment was not constitutional. Smith appealed. The charges included willful retention of national-security information, obstruction of justice, withholding of documents, and false statements. Trump took boxes of documents to properties, where they were stored haphazardly, but the indictment centered on his refusal to give them back to the government despite repeated requests.
When?
Smith filed charges in June 2023. On July 15, 2024, Cannon dismissed the charges. Smith appealed that on August 26, but filed to dismiss charges on November 25.
How grave was the allegation?
These are, I have written, the stupidest crimes imaginable, but they are nevertheless very serious. Protecting the nation’s secrets is one of the greatest responsibilities of any public official with classified clearance, and not only did Trump put these documents at risk, but he also (allegedly) refused to comply with a subpoena, tried to hide the documents, and lied to the government through his attorneys.
How plausible was a guilty verdict?
This once looked to be the most open-and-shut case: The facts and legal theory here are pretty straightforward. But Smith drew a short straw when he was randomly assigned Cannon, a Trump appointee who repeatedly ruled favorably for Trump and bogged the case down in endless pretrial arguments. Even before her dismissal of the case, some legal commentators accused her of “sabotaging” it.
Fulton County: Election Subversion
In Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, District Attorney Fani Willis brought a huge racketeering case against Trump and 18 others, alleging a conspiracy that spread across weeks and states with the aim of stealing the 2020 election.
When?
Willis obtained the indictment in August 2023. The number of people charged makes the case unwieldy and difficult to track. Several of them, including Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis, struck plea deals in the fall. On December 19, an appeals court removed Willis from the case, citing her relationship with a former special prosecutor on the case. She has appealed, and the case’s future is murky.
How grave is the allegation?
More than any other case, this one attempts to reckon with the full breadth of the assault on democracy following the 2020 election.
How plausible is a guilty verdict?
This is a huge case for a local prosecutor, even in a county as large as Fulton, to bring. The racketeering law allowed Willis to sweep in a great deal of material, and she has some strong evidence—such as a call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” some 11,000 votes. It’s now unclear whether the case will continue with Willis removed.
Department of Justice: Election Subversion
Special Counsel Smith also charged Trump with four federal felonies in connection with his attempt to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.
When?
A grand jury indicted Trump on August 1, 2023. The trial was originally scheduled for March but was frozen while the Supreme Court mulled whether the former president should be immune from prosecution. On July 1, 2024, the justices ruled that a president is immune from prosecution for official but not unofficial acts, finding that some of Trump’s postelection actions were official and sending the case back to the trial court to determine others. Smith obtained a new indictment on August 27, which retains the same four felony charges but omits references to corrupting the Justice Department. On November 25, Smith filed to drop charges because of Trump’s reelection.
How grave was the allegation?
This case rivaled the Fulton County one in importance. It is narrower, focusing just on Trump and a few key elements of the paperwork coup, but the symbolic weight of the U.S. Justice Department prosecuting an attempt to subvert the American election system is heavy.
How plausible was a guilty verdict?
The question is now purely speculative and academic.
Additionally …
Once upon a time, cases were filed in more than 30 states over whether Trump could even appear on the 2024 ballot under a novel legal theory about the Fourteenth Amendment. Proponents, including J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe in The Atlantic, argued that the former president was ineligible to serve again under a clause that disqualifies anyone who took an oath defending the Constitution and then subsequently participated in a rebellion or an insurrection. They said that Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election and his incitement of the January 6 riot meet the criteria.
The Supreme Court conclusively disagreed. The justices ruled unanimously on March 4 that states could not remove Trump from the ballot, and appear on the ballot he did. Trump is set to be sworn in as the 47th president on January 20, 2025.
