What Happens to Trump’s Legal Troubles Now?

For the first time in history, the nation has elected a convicted felon to the White House.

Former President Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, according to AP and CNN projections, after he won Wisconsin—the state that also gave him victory eight years ago—which made it impossible for Vice President Kamala Harris to win the 270 Electoral College votes needed to clinch the presidency.
“This will truly be the golden age of America,” Trump said in a speech declaring victory.
State and federal prosecutors had hoped to take their respective cases against Trump to trial before Election Day, but a series of delay tactics deployed by his legal team—plus a Supreme Court ruling in June—resulted in just one criminal trial in Manhattan.
In May, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts after a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records in the hush money case. Trump is appealing that verdict.
Trump’s conviction in New York may still have to play out in the courts, but as for his other three cases, Trump will likely be off the hook, experts told Newsweek.
“If Trump wins, his criminal problems go away,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek before the race was called.
Here’s where each of Trump’s cases stand and what happens next:
Less than two weeks before Election Day, Trump’s lawyers launched a new effort to have the federal election interference case dismissed, arguing that Smith was illegally appointed. But with a win behind him, Trump’s team probably won’t even have to follow through on their latest move since the case will likely be tossed out before it gets to that.
“It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, so the election fraud case in D.C. District Court will be dismissed,” Rahmani said.
Michael McAuliffe, a former federal prosecutor and elected state attorney, agreed that Trump’s victory will “almost certainly” result in the Justice Department dismissing the prosecution. In fact, McAuliffe told Newsweek that, given the election results, Chutkan could even make an unprecedented move.
“One interesting issue is whether the presiding judge or court would reflexively grant the motion for leave to dismiss or whether the court has some power to replace the DOJ with a court-appointed special prosecutor,” McAuliffe said.
“Such a move by a court might be almost unprecedented, but a newly elected president already facing federal criminal charges also is unprecedented.”
And even if she doesn’t, Trump has already said that he’d fire Smith “within two seconds” of becoming president. He’s also floated the idea of deporting the special counsel, who is an American citizen. It’s unclear what legal paths allow such action.
“You have to get the killers, the murders, and mentally deranged, you have to get them out,” Trump told WABC radio last month. “And we should throw Jack Smith out with them, the mentally deranged people. Jack Smith should be considered mentally deranged, and he should be thrown out of the country.”
But if the prosecution proceeds, presidential immunity will be “front and center” again, former assistant U.S. attorney and legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a vocal Trump critic, told Newsweek.
“It would continue to be litigated by Judge Chutkan, and she’ll make her ruling,” he added. “The DC Circuit Court of Appeals will probably affirm her ruling again because she’s a very strong judge, and then the Supreme Court will do whatever the heck the Supreme Court is going to do.”
Smith may not be too thrilled with Trump’s win, but Aileen Cannon, on the other hand, is likely celebrating.
The controversial judge, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump, has been accused of ruling in Trump’s favor throughout the Florida case. She first drew scrutiny after she granted the former president’s request for a special master to review the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago during the August 2022 raid of Trump’s property in Palm Beach. The decision was reversed and rebuked by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Cannon dismissed the case against Trump entirely in July after finding that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, sparking outrage among legal experts. The ruling is being appealed, but the judge will likely come out on top since she could soon be the head of the Department of Justice.
A roster circulated within Trump’s campaign before Election Day said that the president-elect is considering appointing Cannon as his new attorney general. Kirschner said that if Cannon does end up leading the DOJ, she would be “ready, willing and able” to fire Smith as special counsel and use her own ruling as reasoning to do so.
“The interesting part is she could hide behind her lawless ruling that special counsel is unconstitutional and fire him not just because Donald Trump advocate, but because she could say, ‘Well, I’ve already ruled that special counsel is not lawful,'” Kirschner said, adding that if she becomes the attorney general, Cannon would likely kill both the Florida and D.C. case against Trump.
Rahmani also told Newsweek, “If for some reason Smith refuses to dismiss the cases, Trump can direct his attorney general to fire Smith.”
A similar fate awaits Trump in Georgia, according to McAuliffe.
“The Fulton County, Georgia election fraud case should also be dismissed, based on the same logic, even though it’s a state prosecution,” he said.
The matter in Fulton County has been stalled since June, when a Georgia appeals court halted all pretrial proceedings in the case while it decides whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified.
The effort to oust Willis comes after a lengthy hearing earlier this year over her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, whom she appointed as special counsel on the case. Judge Scott McAfee had ruled that Willis could remain so long as Wade resigned, which he did after the ruling, but Trump and his codefendants are appealing that decision.
Kirschner said Trump may even go a step further and take action against the prosecutor leading the Georgia case.
“He has now tripled and quadrupled down on using the military to go after enemies of the state, including his Republican and his Democrats enemies,” he said of Trump. “He’s named [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [California Representative Adam] Schiff as enemies of the state that he would use the military to go after.”
Trump has been fixated on his political opponents, repeatedly vowing to go after top Democrats and even send the military to handle what he calls “the enemy from within.”
“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics,” he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo last month. “I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Kirschner told Newsweek: “You’re telling me that he wouldn’t put Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg in the enemies of the state category? I’m sure he would deploy the military against him.”
Now that Trump is on his way back to the White House the biggest questions surround the conviction handed down to him earlier this year and whether he will be ordered to serve time behind bars.
Trump’s long-awaited sentencing hearing, originally scheduled for July, was delayed again in September after Judge Juan Merchan agreed to postpone it until November 28. At the time of the ruling, Trump was set to be sentenced on September 18.
“The only real question is what happens to his sentencing in the New York hush money case?” Rahmani said. “I highly doubt Juan Merchan will sentence Trump to a period of incarceration regardless of the outcome of the election, but Trump winning makes it logistically impossible and a certainty that he won’t receive any time.”
It is unclear if the hearing set for later this month will proceed as scheduled.
As president, Trump will have the power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons” under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.
Kirschner said the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether a presidential self-pardon is constitutional, so it’s unclear if Trump would be able to do so.
However, Rahmani pointed out that the Court’s June ruling on immunity “gives presidents extremely broad passes for what most Americans would view as corrupt or otherwise illegal conduct.”
“It’s worth remembering that every president until now did the job assuming he might have criminal liability for certain intentional corrupt and fraudulent behavior,” Rahmani said. “The republic survived just fine with that possibility in place. However, the country faces possibly the strongest executive powers in our nation’s history.”
Krischner said there’s no precedent stopping Trump from pardoning himself, but added that a self-pardon wouldn’t work in state court proceedings like in Fulton County or Manhattan.
“So, he couldn’t use that even if it was deemed to be constitutional,” he said. “He couldn’t use that in Georgia or New York. What he could use is something that I think is a straight face legal argument, whether I subjectively agree with it or not, and that is that state court prosecutions have to be made while the president, who’s being prosecuted by [the state], is in office.”
Although the results of the 2024 election have upended Trump’s criminal case, it will have no legal impact on his civil fraud case, or the massive judgement that was handed to the former president in February. The judgment was a result of a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump, his three eldest children and the Trump Organization, alleging that they engaged in financial fraud by inflating property values to secure favorable loans and insurance terms.
“Presidents can be sued for their actions out of office going back to Bill Clinton and the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Practically speaking, the bond companies may be hesitant to enforce the bond against a sitting president, but there is nothing in the law preventing them from doing so,” Rahmani said.
While Trump’s 2024 victory won’t change anything on the legal front, McAuliffe said the president-elect would still politically benefit “from an almost impenetrable barrier of protection.”
“Instead of the legal process playing out to resolutions in each case, the presidency will provide a safe harbor from which he can say or do almost anything with impunity,” he said.