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The 78-year-old Trump will almost certainly see his myriad legal troubles vanish now that he’s been declared the winner of the 2024 election against Vice President Kamala Harris, said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor.
Trump is currently facing federal charges in Washington, DC, for alleged fraud in the 2020 election, as well as election fraud charges in the state of Georgia. Special Counsel Jack Smith has also appealed a federal judge’s ruling dismissing his alleged stolen classified documents case.
Earlier Report: Election 2024: Trump Reclaims Presidency By Securing Wins In Key Battleground States
As of Wednesday, Nov. 6, Smith was in talks with the Justice Department leadership about how to end the federal cases against the president-elect, CNN reports.
“Now that Trump has won, his criminal problems go away,” said Rahmani. ‘It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted.”
Rahmani said the most likely scenario is that the election fraud cases, both the federal and state cases, will be dismissed. The Department of Justice will also abandon its Eleventh Circuit appeal trying to revise the classified documents case, he said.
“If for some reason Jack Smith refuses to dismiss the cases, Trump can direct his Attorney General to fire Smith,” Rahmani said, adding that putting the case on hold for years would violate Trump’s right to a speedy trial.
The only real question, he said, is what happens in Trump’s New York criminal case, in which he was convicted of 34 felonies. A jury found that he falsified business records to conceal payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in order to hide an alleged affair.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday, Nov. 26.
“I highly doubt Judge Juan Merchan was going to sentence Trump to a period of incarceration regardless of the outcome of the election, but Trump winning makes it logistically impossible and a certainty that he won’t receive any time,” Rahmani said.
If Merchan does sentence Trump, he can appeal both the conviction and sentence to the New York appellate courts and then the US Supreme Court.
“The reason I think Merchan won’t sentence Trump to jail or any other type of confinement is that Merchan didn’t remand Trump despite 10 violations of his gag order,” Rahmani said.
He went on to say that Merchan “doesn’t have the stomach” to imprison a former president or president-elect.
“Nor would it be appropriate for a defendant with no criminal history convicted of Class E felonies, the least serious under New York law.”
Trump was declared the winner just before dawn Wednesday after crucial wins in the so-called “Blue Wall” battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Michigan was called in his favor hours later.
Trump was also the projected winner in the key swing state of Georgia, and was leading in the sunbelt states of Arizona and Nevada as of Wednesday evening.
He becomes the first president who will serve non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland, who was 22nd president from 1885 to 1889, and the 24th chief executive from 1893 to 1897.
As of Wednesday evening, Trump had 295 electoral votes to 226 for Harris. He was also leading in the popular vote 51 percent to 47.6 percent.
It marks the first time a Republican has won the popular vote in 20 years, when incumbent President George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in 2004.
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