After the 2024 election next week on Nov. 5, former President Donald Trump will be met with one of two fates: a return to the Oval Office, or years of criminal court proceedings, and perhaps incarceration, experts say.
Perhaps no candidate in U.S. history has faced such stark personal stakes on Election Day.
Trump’s third campaign for president has played out alongside the four criminal cases against him — two in halting fits and spurts, one toward dismissal and one moving relatively swiftly toward a potential conviction.
Where they go from here could very well depend on whether Trump is elected.
New York “hush money” case
A unanimous jury found Trump guilty in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The seven-week trial focused on a scheme Trump signed off on, while in office as president, in which he and others covered up a payment to an adult film star to prevent her from airing a claim that she and Trump had a sexual encounter years before.
The $130,000 payment was made days before the 2016 presidential election. The consequences are scheduled to be revealed days after the 2024 election.
Trump’s sentencing, initially scheduled for July 11 and then postponed again in September, is set for Nov. 26.
Former New York prosecutor Bennett Gershman said even if Trump wins the election, “I don’t see any reason in law for why the sentencing would be delayed.”
Whether he’s president-elect, or once again a defeated candidate, one thing is relatively certain, said Gershman, who’s a professor at Pace University’s law school. Even if Trump loses the election and is sentenced to time in jail or prison, it could be years before he’s incarcerated.
“It’s going to take time for the appeal to wash out,” said Gershman. And if Trump wins, appeal proceedings or the sentence itself, would likely be delayed until after his presidency.
“He’d be a president with 34 felony convictions, and maybe he’s a felon who’s sentenced to two or three years in jail, and he’s running the nation,” Gershman said. “This is all new stuff, but it’s not out of fantasy land anymore.”
The special counsel cases
2020 election
Trump was indicted in August 2023 in a case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. He was charged with four counts stemming from his conduct after the 2020 election, as he and others sought to turn over the results, which showed Trump had lost to Joe Biden.
The case ground to a halt as Trump brought a claim of presidential immunity to the Supreme Court, which in July ruled former presidents are shielded from prosecution for official acts taken while in the White House.
In August, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment that narrowed the allegations against him to comply with the high court’s new framework for presidential immunity.
Handling of sensitive documents
Smith is also overseeing a prosecution in a Florida federal court in which Trump is accused of mishandling sensitive government records after leaving the White House in January 2021. That case was dismissed in July by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who said in a 93-page order that she concluded Smith had been appointed unlawfully.
Smith’s office appealed that decision, arguing Cannon ruled incorrectly. Trump’s team has seized on her decision and argued it provides grounds to similarly dismiss the election case Smith brought.
The arguments from both sides may be for naught if Trump wins the election, according to CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman, who said his administration’s Justice Department would likely drop the cases.
“If Donald Trump becomes President of the United States, it would logically follow that his attorney general and the new Department of Justice would dismiss the cases that special counsel Jack Smith brought,” Klieman said.
Trump himself has said if he’s elected, Smith will be out of a job.
“It’s so easy — I would fire him within two seconds,” Trump said during an Oct. 24 radio interview.
Fulton County, Georgia, case on 2020 election
Trump was among 19 people charged in a state case in Georgia in August 2023, accusing the group of a racketeering enterprise that sought to illegally thwart Trump’s election defeat in the state.
Five of the 13 counts against Trump have been dismissed, though Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis has appealed the dismissal of three and is likely to appeal the others.
The case has been on hold since June, when the state’s Court of Appeals agreed to consider whether Willis should be removed from the case for having had a romantic relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
If Trump wins, the Fulton County criminal case will go from on hold to “a grinding halt,” said Emory University law professor John Acevedo.
“There is that right that all defendants have to confront witnesses, but you can’t really have the president of the United States sitting in an Atlanta courtroom,” Acevedo said.
One person who shares that view is Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, Steve Sadow. He said during a December 2023 hearing in the case that if Trump won, any trial would need to be delayed until at least 2029.
Sadow cited the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, and argued the state’s prosecution would essentially be outranked by the federal government’s needs while Trump is in the White House.
“I believe that the supremacy clause and his duties as president of the United States [mean] this trial would not take place at all until after his term in office,” Sadow said.