A Guide to Donald Trump’s Legal Perils

Former President Donald Trump is having to answer to criminal charges at both the federal and state levels as he fights to secure the Republican nomination for 2024. Here’s a look at the status of the most prominent prosecutions, investigations and lawsuits involving the former president and declared presidential candidate.

Criminal inquiries into Jan. 6 and efforts to overturn 2020 election 

Special counsel Jack Smith told Trump on July 16 that he is a target of their investigation into efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 election. The special counsel’s work comes as prosecutors in Washington have brought charges against more than 1,000 people in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that sought to stop Congress from certifying President Biden’s win.

Smith’s team is focusing on Trump’s efforts to stay in power, including attempts by pro-Trump allies to create alternate slates of electors in swing states that Biden won.

Prosecutors have subpoenaed a range of people in Trump’s orbit, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Trump asserted executive privilege in an effort to prevent Pence, Meadows and others from testifying.

Mar-a-Lago documents investigation

Smith indicted Trump on June 9 after an investigation into his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The charges marked the first time in history that the federal government has criminally charged a former president.

Trump faces a total of 37 counts on seven different charges, including willful retention of national-defense information, withholding a record, false statements and conspiracy to obstruct. On five of the counts, Trump was charged alongside his personal aide, Walt Nauta, who went to work at Mar-a-Lago after serving as a military valet in the White House. Nauta separately faces a false-statements charge. Both Trump and Nauta have entered not guilty pleas to all charges.

Federal Judge Aileen Cannon set May 20, 2024, as the date for the trial to begin, finding middle ground between prosecutors who wanted it to begin in December and Trump’s defense team, which sought to have it start after the 2024 election.

Manhattan criminal case on Stormy Daniels payment

Trump was charged on April 4 with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money paid to suppress potentially damaging sexual allegations during his 2016 presidential campaign. He pleaded not guilty. The case, which centers on Trump’s alleged role in payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, marked the first time in American history that a former president has faced criminal charges.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg secured the indictment through a grand jury that began in late January hearing from witnesses involved in the payment and its aftermath. The charges of falsifying business records in the first degree are Class E felonies, the lowest level, and carry a maximum sentence of four years in jail, though first-time offenders usually receive much lighter punishment. A judge set a trial date of March 25, 2024.

New York state civil lawsuit alleging false valuation of real-estate assets

New York Attorney General Letitia James

James is asking the court for remedies that would effectively cripple the Trumps’ ability to do business in New York. Trump has denied wrongdoing and said the lawsuit by James, a Democrat, is politically motivated. A trial is set for October.

Georgia investigation into alleged election meddling

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election and has said she is nearing charging decisions.

Willis, a Democrat in Atlanta, initially launched the probe on the basis of a recorded Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which then-President Trump urged Republican Brad Raffensperger,

A special grand jury convened by Willis heard from 75 witnesses, wrote a report summarizing its findings and recommended criminal charges against multiple people whose identities haven’t been made public. The special grand jury, disbanded in January, lacked the authority to issue indictments, which Willis can now seek by presenting evidence to a traditional grand jury. Trump has petitioned the Georgia Supreme Court to shut down the criminal investigation, saying his rights were violated by Willis and the judge who oversaw the process

Willis has said charging decisions could come this summer.

Civil lawsuits related to Jan. 6 attack on Capitol

Several Democratic lawmakers and Capitol Police officers are seeking to hold Trump accountable for the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, in a series of civil lawsuits. 

A federal judge in Washington rejected Trump’s immunity claims and allowed the lawsuits to proceed last year, prompting the former president to challenge the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A three-judge panel heard arguments in December over whether Trump bears responsibility for the mental and physical harm caused by the assault on the Capitol.

Invited to weigh in on Trump’s immunity from the lawsuits, the Justice Department said he wasn’t immune and can be sued in connection with Jan. 6, when he told a crowd of supporters to “fight like hell” to keep Congress from certifying his loss to Biden. The appeals-court panel hasn’t yet ruled on the matter. 

E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case

E. Jean Carroll, a New York writer and journalist, sued Trump in a New York state court in late 2019, saying the president lied and defamed her when he denied raping her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s. In late 2020, the Justice Department took over the defense of the case from Trump’s private attorneys, claiming Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he responded as president to Carroll’s claims. 

The Justice Department has since reversed its position, but the case remains in federal court, where a trial is scheduled for January 2024.

Carroll brought a follow-on lawsuit last year, invoking a New York law that opened a yearlong window in which people who say they were sexually assaulted as adults can sue their alleged abusers, no matter how long ago the conduct occurred.

After a trial in that case earlier this year, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages. The jury didn’t find that Trump committed rape.