Tracking the Trump criminal cases

Cohen, who paid Daniels and was allegedly reimbursed by Trump, turned against his former boss in three and a half days of heated testimony. As a star witness for the prosecution, he testified that Trump personally approved the hush money arrangement.

Prosecutors introduced evidence of other hush money payments that Trump arranged to cover up damaging stories in the run-up to the 2016 election. Those other payments suggested a coordinated effort to help his campaign rather than merely to avoid personal embarrassment — a key issue on the question of whether the Daniels payoff violated election law. Tabloid publisher David Pecker testified early in the trial that he executed two such arrangements in service of Trump's campaign.

In rejecting Trump’s motion to dismiss, the judge lowered the bar for the underlying crime element of the felony charges by affirming the prosecution’s argument that Trump does not have to be convicted of the underlying crime for the charges to stand. Rather, “it is his intent to commit those other crimes that carries the day,” the judge wrote.

Prosecutors’ decision to elevate the business-records charges into felonies by linking them to an underlying violation of election laws was a novel legal theory. Some critics contend that prosecutors overstepped by transforming simple bookkeeping violations into a case about election interference.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche portrayed the Daniels payoff as a private matter intended to protect Trump's family and brand. He also argued the former president paid Cohen only for legitimate legal services and had no personal involvement in how his organization recorded the payments to Cohen. Blanche repeatedly took shots at Cohen's credibility, highlighting the witness' criminal record and history of deceit.

Even though Trump was convicted, it is far from certain that he will face any prison time. At the felony level, falsifying business records carries a sentence of up to four years in prison, but first-time offenders, particularly in non-violent cases, often receive probation instead.

Trump’s efforts to subvert the election were extensive, well documented and largely in public view. He and his allies spread lies about voter fraud and stoked the protests that led to the Jan. 6 attack.

Many of the top aides in the Trump administration testified to the grand jury, giving investigators remarkable insight into what was happening privately in Trump’s orbit during the critical two-month period and perhaps providing important evidence about Trump’s state of mind. Pence — who resisted Trump’s pressure to try to annul the election results on Jan. 6 — was the most notable witness. Others included Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows; his White House counsel, Pat Cipollone; his national security adviser, Robert O’Brien; and his senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller.

Trump has been remarkably successful in delaying the case and staving off any prospect of a trial. If Trump is elected president in 2024 and the case remains pending, he is widely expected to order the Justice Department to dismiss the charges.

When Trump’s legal team initially mounted their aggressive theory of presidential immunity, many legal scholars derided it as a far-fetched gambit. But Trump’s lawyers were vindicated by the Supreme Court, which announced a far more sweeping version of immunity than almost anyone anticipated. Among other things, the court said Trump has absolute immunity over conversations with his Justice Department officials. That means Smith can no longer present evidence that Trump illegally tried to harness the Justice Department to promote false claims of voter fraud and overturn the election.

Trump’s efforts to undo the Georgia results were based on blatant falsehoods and were largely conducted out in the open. His phone call to Raffensperger was recorded.

Eight Republican activists who falsely claimed to be the state’s presidential electors for Trump have taken immunity deals and have agreed to cooperate with Willis.

A local prosecutor charging a former president with election interference is unprecedented in American history. Trump may claim he is immune from being prosecuted for actions he took while he was still president.

Trump might argue that his statements about the Georgia results are protected by the First Amendment or that he lacked criminal intent because he genuinely believed he won the election.

Many legal experts, including conservatives, have described Smith’s indictment as laying out an exceptionally persuasive case. It contains evidence from Trump’s own statements — including one caught on tape — that he knew he was not authorized to retain classified material but did so anyway. Evidence of obstruction — including instructing his aides to move boxes around or destroy security footage, and apparently suggesting to his lawyer that he conceal documents from the FBI — is similarly compelling.

Trump seems to have publicly admitted that he knowingly held onto the documents after he left the White House. During a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said he “took the documents” because he was “allowed to.”

The Presidential Records Act makes clear that presidential documents are property of the federal government, not an outgoing president. And multiple federal laws tightly control how classified documents can be viewed and stored. Smith has pointed to a 2009 executive order as pivotal, saying Trump would have required a written waiver of the order’s “need-to-know requirement” for access to classified information after his term in office.

​​While he was president, Trump had broad authority to declassify documents. If Trump could show that he declassified the records at issue before he left the White House, he may be able to undermine the charges. To date, however, there is no evidence that Trump did so.

In a series of motions to dismiss, Trump’s lawyers challenged the charges on a variety of fronts. They argued, for instance, that because many of the documents were transported to Mar-a-Lago before Trump’s term ended in January 2021, he implicitly designated them as “personal records,” beyond the scope of the Presidential Records Act. They also alleged that the prosecution was politically motivated and that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.

Trump received a lucky break when the case was randomly assigned to Cannon, whom he appointed to the federal bench in 2020. Cannon has frequently expressed hostility toward the special counsel’s legal arguments on various pretrial matters, and she has dragged out the proceedings in ways that have benefitted Trump. Her decision dismissing the case was a stunning win for the former president, even as many legal experts denounced the decision as wrong.