Many of Donald Trump’s legal troubles are coming to an end as he launches his third presidential election – but the biggest risks remain
Donald Trump has steadily resolved a number of major legal headaches ahead of his 2024 run.
Other deals are expected to close well before 2024.
However, Trump still faces unlimited risk from the Justice Department and the Fulton County District Attorney.
While he was president, Donald Trump spent four years delaying investigations and prosecutions against him.
In the run-up to his announcement this month announcing a third presidential election, he eliminated many of them.
Earlier in November, he settled a lawsuit filed in September 2015 by protesters who alleged he was beaten by his security guards outside Trump Tower as they demonstrated against his racist rants against Mexicans.
Between fall 2021 and spring 2022, it made a colonization sprint.
In September 2021, his company also settled a lawsuit brought by a hotel management company that bought Trump’s hotel in Panama, claiming the Trump Organization had misrepresented its financial health. A few months later, just before Trump was supposed to sit for a deposition, he settled a case brought by Summer Zervos, who alleged he sexually assaulted her twice and then defamed her by calling her a liar. And in May, the company and Trump’s inaugural committee agreed to pay a $750,000 fine to settle an investigation by Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine into money he claims was misplaced by members. enriched by the Trump family.
Trump can also thank the judges for handing him several wins.
November 15, 2022 was probably his best day in court in recent memory. In a New York state court case, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by her niece Mary Trump, who alleged that he and two of her siblings maneuvered to thwart her from her inherited rightful share of the family business empire.
On the same day, another judge in federal court in New York dismissed a lawsuit filed by Michael Cohen that alleged the Trump administration had personally targeted him to remove him from house arrest and keep him behind bars amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Cohen told Insider he was considering appealing.)
Some cases involving Trump associates no longer weigh on him either.
His longtime friend, Tom Barrack, was acquitted by a jury in Brooklyn for acting illegally as a lobbyist for the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors have said they will also not press charges against his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani following an investigation into whether he acted illegally as a lobbyist for foreign powers.
In the losses column, Steve Bannon was found in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. This week, the Supreme Court also paved the way for a separate House committee to obtain his tax returns, though it’s unclear what will happen to them until Republicans retake the chamber in January.
He may be able to erase the rest by 2024…
Some of Trump’s legal headaches that he just can’t shake off, no matter how raging he rages.
Currently, the Trump Organization is on trial in Manhattan for criminal tax evasion. The defense, Insider’s Laura Italiano reported, relies on convincing the jury that Trump was just a very generous boss and didn’t watch his company’s financial affairs too closely.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office also hasn’t ruled out the possibility that he would personally file charges against Trump as part of his investigation into his company’s finances. And Trump faces a $250 million lawsuit from the New York attorney general in a parallel case alleging he inflated the company’s earnings to deceive banks and insurers. The attorney general’s office once convinced a judge to place his company under independent scrutiny, scorned him and forced him and other executives to sit for depositions.
It is not known when these cases could go to trial or if they will be settled in advance.
In a Monday court filing, Trump’s attorneys asked the judge handling E. Jean Carroll against him, accusing him of sexual assault and defamation, to be tried by May 2023.
Another lawsuit, brought by plaintiffs who allege the Trump Organization deceived them by pushing a fraudulent multi-layered marketing scheme, will likely go to trial in the fall of 2023 if not settled by then. In a filing Monday in court, plaintiffs’ attorneys asked the judge for an October 2023 trial date, “before primary contests and other campaign-related events begin in earnest.”
“Plaintiffs have no desire to interfere with the upcoming campaign and are aware that, if the timeline in this case extends into 2024, Defendants will likely use, as they have done in the past, the campaign as a basis for seeking additional time,” the lawyers wrote.
…with some exceptions
Trump’s most serious legal problems are also the ones he will have the hardest time getting rid of.
His biggest threats come from the Justice Department, which has opened a criminal investigation into his handling of government records he took with him to Mar-a-Lago. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith, an experienced war crimes and political corruption prosecutor, as special counsel overseeing the investigation.
Trump scored an early victory by successfully convincing a federal judge he appointed in Florida to bring a “special master” into the case, briefly delaying the government’s ability to use the documents he seized on his estate for his investigation. But his lawyers have been embarrassed by the circuit court in appeals related to the case, indicating his legal defenses will struggle as the investigation progresses.
Smith is also overseeing a separate criminal investigation into efforts to keep Trump in power despite losing the 2020 election. Trump faces a series of lawsuits from members of Congress as well as wounded Capitol police officers during the January 6 riot who seek to hold him responsible for the chaos of the day. While the House of Representatives Jan. 6 panel is set to wrap up before Republicans resume it in January, the court cases have no end in sight.
Trump’s efforts to stay in power despite the wishes of American voters have also drawn attention in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has overseen a thorough investigation into his appeals to state officials asking them to ‘find’ votes in his favor and invalidate current President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections.
Willis has fought court battles to force figures in Trump’s orbit to sit for depositions in his investigations and is reportedly considering filing indictments as early as December.
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