Keeping Up With the Trump Trials

Trump has pleaded not guilty to four federal felony charges issued in August 2023 by a Washington, DC, grand jury for his efforts to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The case, being pressed by Special Counsel Jack Smith, is on hold while the Supreme Court considers his claim that he should be immune from prosecution because his actions before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol were within the bounds of his official duties as president. A three-judge panel with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit denied Trump’s immunity claim in February. The high court will hear arguments April 25. The court said it plans to decide “whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.” It’s unclear when the court will rule on the case. If he loses, the trial can go forward. If he wins, the case likely will be dismissed.

Trump faces a criminal trial for allegedly engaging in a scheme to identify, buy and bury negative information about him to boost his prospects of winning the presidency in 2016. His former lawyer Michael Cohen is expected to be the trial’s star witness in a case in which the Manhattan state prosecutors allege the former president directed his then-lawyer to pay adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence and later claimed it as legal expenses. He’s also accused of making two other payments to bury negative news. The case is considered the least compelling but as a state prosecution, Trump cannot pardon himself if he’s convicted and wins re-election.

On Feb. 16, Justice Arthur Engoron in Manhattan ordered Trump to pay $454 million for exaggerating the value of his assets by as much as $3.6 billion a year to get better terms on loans for more than a decade. Trump was also barred from running a New York-based business for three years, while his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. were banned for two years. Engoron issued the verdict after holding an 11-week non-jury trial in which Trump, his children and several of his current and former employees and accountants testified. The former president is appealing the verdict, but still faces a March 25 deadline to post a bond for at least the full amount of the verdict while he appeals. Trump has said the requirement could force him to sell some of his properties at a loss if it isn’t put on hold or reduced while he appeals.

The suit was a major victory for New York Attorney General Letitia James, an elected Democrat who filed the wide-ranging fraud suit following a three-year investigation into Trump’s asset valuations. Her probe kicked off after Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen publicly accused his ex-boss of financial misconduct, and Cohen was a star witness at the trial. The case zeroed in on Trump’s annual statements of financial condition, which he used in business transactions to illustrate for banks his vast wealth in a bid for lower interest rates. During the trial, James presented extensive evidence that Trump knowingly exaggerated the value of his top properties, from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to his Trump Tower penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Engoron held Trump liable for fraud before the trial, focusing the proceeding on six additional claims, including conspiracy to falsify business business records and financial statements. The defendants lost on all counts. The interest on Trump’s fine is increasing by about $112,000 every day until he pays. Trump is appealing.

Trump is accused of directing a conspiracy to overturn the election, including by spreading false conspiracy theories about voter fraud, pressuring state officials to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Georgia, and promoting a corrupt plan to win the state’s 16 Electoral College votes by appointing a slate of fake electors. He urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to reverse his election loss in the state. Rudy Giuliani and others are charged with falsely accusing election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter of scheming to undermine Trump as votes were being counted on Election Day. Several defendants are also charged with conspiring to breach election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia, and copying voter software and data. Four defendants have pleaded guilty: conservative lawyers Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Elllis and Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman.

Trump secured a $91.6 million bond (110% of the verdict) to delay paying up while he appeals. New York writer E. Jean Carroll went public in 2019 with an explosive allegation that then-President Trump had raped her in an isolated dressing room in a luxury department store in Manhattan in 1996, after they ran into each other while shopping. In response, Trump issued statements from the White House accusing Carroll of fabricating the attack to sell a book and to hurt him politically. He also said she wasn’t his “type.” Those statements prompted Carroll to sue Trump for defamation in 2019, though the case was delayed for several years as Trump argued — unsuccessfully — that he couldn’t be sued over comments he issued while he was in the White House. The judge then held Trump liable for defamation before the trial, which took place in January 2024, and featured testimony from both Carroll and Trump. The jury focused only on damages, including compensatory damages to cover harm to Carroll’s reputation, and punitive damages to punish Trump for his conduct. Trump has filed a notice of appeal and has called the verdict “excessive.”

New York writer E. Jean Carroll won two lawsuits against Donald Trump in less than a year, both of which relate to her claim that the billionaire sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in Manhattan in the 1990s and defamed her by calling her a liar after she went public with her allegation in 2019. The 2022 sexual assault case was the second suit she filed but was the first to go to trial. In May 2023, a federal jury in Manhattan ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million in damages after finding him liable for sexual abuse stemming from the 1990s assault and defamation over a statement Trump made about Carroll on social media in 2022. She brought the suit under a new state law that temporarily allowed older sexual assault claims to be filed. In the statement, Trump accused Carroll of fabricating the attack to sell a book and to hurt him politically. The verdict was handed down less than a year before Carroll was awarded $83.3 million in her other suit against Trump, a defamation case that focused on statements Trump issued about her from the White House. Trump is appealing both verdicts.

Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a December ruling by Colorado’s Supreme Court that the 14th Amendment made Trump ineligible to return to the presidency. The former president urged the high court to declare that he did not take part in an insurrection by trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, a push that culminated with a deadly riot at the US Capitol.

Maine and Illinois had also declared Trump ineligible. The nation’s highest court held oral arguments on Feb. 8, where the justices expressed skepticim about arguments that the 14th Amendment allows states to remove candidates from ballots. The justices ruled March 4 to keep Trump on the ballot.