(Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump faces numerous legal troubles as he seeks the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election. Trump, 77, denies any wrongdoing.
Here is a look at the major legal cases involving Trump.
GEORGIA ELECTION-TAMPERING PROBE
Trump on Aug. 15 was hit with a fourth set of criminal charges when a Georgia grand jury indicted him after an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis into his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden in the state.
The indictment lists 19 defendants and 41 felony counts in all. All were charged with racketeering, which is used to target members of organized crime groups and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
The indictment cites a number of crimes that Trump or his associates allegedly committed, including falsely testifying to lawmakers that election fraud had occurred and urging state officials to violate their oaths of office by altering the election results. Prosecutors also cited the breach of a voting system in a rural Georgia county and the harassment of an election worker who became the focus of conspiracy theories.
Counts against Trump include violation of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer.
Other defendants include Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell.
JAN. 6 AND THE U.S. CAPITOL ATTACK
Trump pleaded not guilty on Aug. 3 to charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in federal court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States by preventing Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory over him and to deprive voters of their right to a fair election.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to prevent congressional certification of Biden’s victory. Prosecutors say Trump exploited the attack, refusing advice that he send a message directing rioters to leave.
Trump and his allies advanced claims of voting fraud that they knew to be untrue, prosecutors said. The indictment says close advisers, including senior intelligence officials, told Trump repeatedly that the election results were legitimate.
Trump and others organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven U.S. states, all of which he lost in the election, to submit their votes to be counted and certified as official by Congress on Jan. 6, the indictment said.
RETENTION OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
Trump on June 13 pleaded not guilty in federal court in Miami to charges also brought by Smith that he unlawfully kept classified national security documents after leaving office in January 2021 and lied to officials who sought to recover them.
Smith accuses Trump of risking national secrets by taking thousands of sensitive papers with him when he left the White House and storing them in a haphazard manner at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate and his New Jersey golf club, according to the indictment.
Photos included in the indictment show boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago stored on a ballroom stage, in a bathroom and strewn across the floor of a storage room. Those records included information about the U.S. nuclear program and potential vulnerabilities in the event of an attack, the indictment said.
Trump faces charges that include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes unauthorized possession of defense information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Also charged are Trump’s aide Walt Nauta and another Trump employee, Carlos De Oliveira, the latter with attempting to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago after a grand jury subpoenaed the videos in June 2022. Both also have pleaded not guilty.
The trial is scheduled for May 20, 2024.
NEW YORK ‘HUSH MONEY’ CRIMINAL CASE
Trump on April 4 pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records after a grand jury in Manhattan indicted him in connection with hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. Manhattan District Attorney Bragg’s office accused Trump of trying to conceal a violation of election laws.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels but admitted to reimbursing Cohen for his payment to her.
Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other crimes and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 during Trump’s presidency.
The trial is scheduled for March 25, 2024.
SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEFAMATION CIVIL LAWSUITS
A jury in federal court in Manhattan on May 9 found Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and then defaming her by lying about it in 2022. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. A judge later ruled that Trump had filed a “frivolous” appeal of his decision not to dismiss a separate defamation lawsuit by Carroll, concerning a similar denial by Trump in 2019.
Carroll is seeking at least $10 million more in a separate defamation lawsuit she amended after Trump criticized the verdict on CNN and on his social media platform. He has denied ever meeting Carroll and accused her of making up her allegations. A trial in that case is scheduled for Jan. 15, 2024.
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT
New York state Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, in September 2022 for alleged fraud by him and his family.
James accuses Trump of lying from 2011 to 2021 about asset values, including for his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan, as well as his own net worth, to obtain better terms from lenders and insurers. The lawsuit seeks at least $250 million in damages from Trump, his adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric, the Trump Organization and others, and to stop the Trumps from running businesses in New York.
The trial is scheduled for Oct. 2.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Luc Cohen, Karen Freifeld, Susan Heavey, Sarah N. Lynch, Jonathan Stempel and Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Will Dunham and Howard Goller)
