Donald Trump heads into fall facing an astonishing number of scheduled criminal and civil trials – six, with a distinct possibility of a seventh – within the next nine months as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.
One such case, a civil trial in New York, threatens to cripple the former boss’s company Trump Organization.
Further trials before the Criminal Court, where he was charged with 91 criminal charges, put him at risk of a prison sentence even before the Republican National Convention in mid-July in Milwaukee.
The trials are taking place in three states and the District of Columbia, sometimes within days of each other, and sometimes with the same attorneys involved.
Trump has said he is innocent or not at fault on all counts.
“These accusations and lawsuits are all part of my political opponents’ campaign plan,” he wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.
“It’s meddling in the election, and they’re going to use the Justice Department and the FBI to help them, which is illegal,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post. “Crooked Joe pushed this lawsuit hard to get it done. This is a new low in presidential politics. And I say to the Democrats: be careful what you wish for.” “
Here is the latest on Trump’s legal threats:
Fraud lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General: Trial set to begin Oct. 2 in Manhattan Supreme Court
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Trump, the Trump Organization and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, alleging years of widespread fraud involving false financial statements related to the company’s business.
James is seeking $250 million in damages in the civil case. It also seeks to bar Trump’s men individually from serving as officials of a New York corporation and to bar the defendant business entities from doing business in the state.
The attorney general alleges that Trump “falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars.”
James claims he did this to obtain more favorable loan and insurance terms for the Trump Organization, and to reduce the company’s tax liability.
Georgia election case: Co-accused Kenneth Chesibro’s trial is set to begin Oct. 23 in Atlanta State Court
Trump is charged with 13 felonies related to an alleged conspiracy to illegally interfere in the 2020 Georgia presidential election and reverse his loss to President Joe Biden.
Eighteen other people have also been charged in the case before the Fulton County Superior Court, including Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis asked the judge to set a date for the March 4 trial of Trump, who is accused of, among other things, violating the state’s Corrupt Organizations and Influenced by Racketeering Act.
That date is likely off the table, given that Trump’s impeachment trial in a similar federal case on Monday is set for the same date Willis is seeking.
But it’s still possible that a Fulton County judge could soon end up scheduling Trump’s Georgia trial before the Republican convention and in the middle of the Republican primary season.
Meanwhile, attorney Kenneth Chesibro, one of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the case, has been granted a trial date of Oct. 23 after he pleaded for a speedy trial.
Counsel Sydney Powell, another defendant, also requested a speedy trial.
Trump faces a possible prison sentence of five years or more if convicted in the Georgia case.
E. Jean Carroll Rape Defamation Case: US District Court in Manhattan, January 15 Trial Begins
Trump is accused of defaming writer E. Jane Carroll in 2019, when he was president, and then again in May, when he made statements about her when he denied her allegations that he had raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. .
And in May, Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages from Trump when a jury in the same court in another related civil lawsuit found that he sexually assaulted her in the incident and defamed her in statements last fall.
Trump has suffered multiple setbacks in recent weeks in the case, which is now heading to trial.
District Judge Lewis Kaplan earlier this month dismissed Trump’s counter-defamation lawsuit against Carroll.
In July, the US Department of Justice dropped nearly three years of efforts to protect Trump from civil liability in the lawsuit.
The trial is scheduled to begin on the same day that Iowa holds its caucuses.
New York pyramid scheme lawsuit: US District Court in Manhattan, Jan. 29 Start of trial
Trump and the Trump Organization, in this city working class In this case, they are accused of making millions of dollars in secret payments by deceiving working-class Americans into investing in a fraudulent multi-level marketing firm called American Communications Network from 2005 through 2015.
Trump allegedly told potential investors that ACN’s “flagship videophone does half a billion dollars in sales a year,” and that he “tested the opportunity” and “did a lot of research.”
“None of this was true,” the lawsuit states.
Roberta Kaplan, one of the attorneys suing Trump on behalf of four anonymous plaintiffs, is also Carroll’s lead attorney in her lawsuit.
In May, three of Trump’s children, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump, were removed as defendants from the case after Kaplan suggested the move.
At the time, Kaplan said the children’s previous affidavits in the suit “made it clear that Donald J. Trump himself was the architect, principal representative, and significant beneficiary of the fraudulent scheme to endorse and promote ACN in exchange for secret payments.”
Federal Election Criminal Case: US District Court in Washington, D.C. Trial begins March 4
Earlier this month, Trump was charged with illegally plotting to overturn his loss to Biden in the 2020 national election.
Special counsel Jack Smith alleges that Trump and the unindicted co-conspirators sought to undermine democracy in multiple ways, including by trying to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election on January 6, 2021.
Some legal experts said this case, Smith’s second federal criminal complaint, poses the greatest threat to the former president.
As they have in other Trump cases, defense attorneys for the former president have tried to push the federal election interference trial beyond the 2024 election — in this case, to April 2026.
Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday rejected that effort, instead setting a trial start date for March 4, one day before Super Tuesday, the biggest day of the presidential primary season.
The most serious felony in this case carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, although he would likely receive a lesser sentence if convicted.
Trump Business Records Porn Star Criminal Case: Manhattan Supreme Court Trial March 25
A New York state grand jury made history last March when it voted to return the first-ever criminal charges against a sitting or former US president.
Trump is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged scheme to pay porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in 2016 to keep quiet about their alleged sexual relations with Trump.
The payments were made shortly before the 2016 presidential election, in which Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in federal court to facilitating both payments, is a key witness in the case against him.
The case, which is being heard by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, largely centers on the money Trump and his firm paid Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels.
Last month, Trump’s lawyers lost an attempt to take the case to federal court.
Earlier this month, Kaplan, the federal judge in the Carroll case, to rule that Bragg could be awarded Trump’s testimony from the civil case, raising the possibility that Trump’s words could be used against him in the criminal case.
Confidential Documents Criminal Case: US District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida, May 20 Trial Start
Trump was accused of keeping hundreds of secret documents at his club, Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, after leaving the White House in early 2021, and of trying to hide those records from government officials seeking to recover them.
Most of the 40 criminal charges in this case — which is also being tried by Smith’s special counsel’s office — relate to Trump’s alleged hoarding of national defense information.
But he was also accused of trying to delete security footage from the club after he was recalled last summer.
Two of the defendants in the case — Walt Nauta, Trump’s butler, and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos de Oliveira — are also accused of conspiring to erase the footage.
The footage allegedly shows Nauta and de Oliveira moving around boxes containing classified documents.
The trial is scheduled to begin two months before the Republican National Committee selects the next Republican presidential nominee for 2024.
The first charge in this case carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
This article originally appeared on www.cnbc.com
