Criminally prosecuted in four separate cases in the United States, Donald Trump will probably take advantage of his victory in the American presidential election to put a stop to these proceedings.
With this presidential election, Donald Trump was also playing his personal destiny. Prosecuted in four criminal cases in the United States, his victory declared this Wednesday, November 6 risks putting an end to these prosecutions.
The most pressing case is the one he was convicted of in May. The Republican was convicted on May 30 for 34 offenses of falsifying accounting documents, intended to hide a payment of $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels to avoid a sex scandal at the end of his 2016 presidential campaign. Donald Trump thus became the first former president of the United States to be convicted criminally.
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But the pronouncement of his sentence, already postponed to the end of November, risks being postponed again because of his victory, according to the media Americans. Donald Trump faces up to 4 years in prison in this case, but Michael Dorf, a professor at Cornell Law School, told Business Insider that it was likely that if Donald Trump won the White House, he would immediately request that his sentencing be postponed until the end of his presidency. And even without postponement, the hypothesis that Judge Juan Merchan imposes a prison sentence on him, in the case of a first criminal conviction, now appears highly improbable in the face of the insurmountable practical difficulties that the incarceration of a then elected president would raise. current president, according to experts.
Two cases at the federal level
Donald Trump is also being prosecuted for two cases at the federal level. He was charged in 2023 with “conspiracy against the American state”obstruction of an official procedure and violation of electoral rights, in connection with the events occurring following the 2020 presidential election and culminating in theassault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The former Republican president is accused, among other things, of having wanted to invalidate the election of Joe Biden in 2020 and of having allowed the rioters who attacked Congress to do so.
Donald Trump is also accused, in another case, of having taken documents from the White House to his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, when he was no longer president. These confidential documents should normally return to the national archives. He is accused of having thus endangered the security of the United States.
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But, according to the channels ABC et NBCthe Justice Department’s longstanding policy is not to prosecute a sitting president, meaning federal prosecutions of Donald Trump could be halted immediately.
Legally, this policy should not apply to criminal proceedings already initiated before his accession to power, since “it is a very different situation”, tells AFP Claire Finkelstein, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania (north-east). But since this is the interpretation that will prevail under a Trump administration, in these federal procedures, “as things currently stand, he could only be judged after leaving power,” she adds.
The Republican also said he would return “in two seconds” Jack Smith, the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation in these two cases, if elected president. And even if he were convicted at the end of these trials, he would have the possibility of granting himself a presidential pardon, which has never happened before in the United States. However, he cannot do so in the case of the payments to Stormy Daniels since it is a case judged at the state level, in New York, and the presidential pardon only applies to federal cases.
Indicted in Georgia
Donald Trump was indicted in a fourth case, in the state of Georgia. The Republican billionaire faces a total of 13 charges for attempted electoral fraud in this state won by a narrow head by Joe Biden in 2020. The prosecutor in charge of the case used a law in force in this state on organized gang delinquency, used in particular against gangs and providing for sentences of five to twenty years in prison.
Despite the incumbent president’s defeat in Georgia in 2020, “Trump and the other defendants refused to acknowledge that he lost and knowingly and deliberately participated in a conspiracy to illegally change the outcome of the election in his favor “, according to the indictment. Here again, the Washington Post says a possible trial “probably won’t happen until after he leaves the White House.” According to NBChis lawyer Steve Sadow had warned the judge “that under the supremacy clause and his duties as president of the United States, this trial would not take place before the end of his term”, in order to avoid not interfere with its functions.
“If he wins, say goodbye to all criminal cases,” Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, told ABC. “The criminal cases are over, whether from a legal or practical point of view,” she explained, adding that a Donald Trump victory would be a “get out of jail free card” for him.
