Washington.- The legal web in which former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) is entangled has become more intricate than ever: he faces a total of 91 charges distributed in 4 different criminal cases and, simultaneously, he must maintain his campaign to get the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election.
never before america had faced a similar situation and there are still countless unknowns about the possible consequences for Trump.
Of the 91 charges, 13 were announced Monday night after a Georgia grand jury indicted him for trying to rig the results of the 2020 election in that state, where Democrat and incumbent Joe Biden narrowly won. .
A mob law against Trump
In the Georgia case, prosecutor Fani Willis has used a special law against organized crime against Trump, called RICO, which has been used in the past to convict mob bosses like John Gotti.
With that law, Willis has managed to intertwine the crimes committed by Trump and his allies, amalgamating them in a unique narrative in which the former president emerges as the leader of an organization with the shared criminal purpose of reversing the election results in Georgia.
This method allows the prosecution to convict those ringleaders who order others to commit crimes for them.
Of the 13 state charges Trump is accused of in Georgia, only one has to do with that mob law, but it could be one of the most serious, punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
The other crimes are for conspiracy to falsify documents or for pressuring public officials to annul the electoral results.
In addition to Trump, the grand jury has brought criminal charges against 18 of his closest advisers, including his former personal lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, among others.
The assault on the capitol
In addition to the Georgia case, a grand jury in the District of Columbia has filed four federal charges against Trump for allegedly trying to reverse the results of the 2020 election, in which he lost to Biden, and for instigating the assault on the Capitol. .
Those four counts — conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring against the right to vote — could carry a maximum penalty of 55 years in prison.
On August 3, amid much anticipation, Trump appeared in District of Columbia court to plead not guilty to the charges against him, just as he has done in the other three criminal cases against him.
Classified Document Boxes
Another of these cases takes place in the city of Miami (Florida), where a grand jury has charged Trump with 40 federal crimes for mishandling classified materials.
Specifically, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, after leaving power in 2021, Trump ordered the transfer from the White House to his mansion in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) dozens of boxes with newspaper clippings, letters, photos and also hundreds of classified documents , including information about nuclear secrets and plans to attack other countries.
Those documents were not stored securely, but instead ended up in different corners of the Trump mansion, including a bedroom, a ballroom and a bathroom, photos included in the indictment showed.
Payments to a porn actress
Although litigation has increased in recent months, the case that earned Trump the controversial honor of becoming the country’s first former president to face legal charges was that involving porn actress Stormy Daniels.
In March of this same year, a grand jury in New York indicted Trump for allegedly paying $130,000 through his attorney Michael Cohen to Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged sexual relationship between the two ten years earlier.
In this case, Trump faces 34 state charges for falsifying business documents, each of which could carry a prison sentence of up to 4 years.
The trial date is scheduled for March 24 of next year, coinciding with the height of the Republican Party primary and just months away from the November 7, 2024 election.
Litigation intertwined with the campaign for 2024
As the accusations continue, Trump stands by his narrative and insists that all the lawsuits are politically motivated and seek to hinder his return to the White House.
Trump, who is starting as the favorite for the primaries, has used the litigation against him to raise funds for his electoral campaign and present himself as the main defender of his followers.
The phrase he repeats over and over again at his rallies is: “In the end, they don’t come for me. They’re coming for you, and I’m just getting in their way.”
Meanwhile, his lawyers are working to delay legal proceedings as long as possible, in the hope that the former president will evade accountability.
