Here are all the trials Trump faces and how they could affect his election
Donald Trump faces several trials that could threaten his chances at presidency in 2024. We break down each case and whether he can still run if he's convicted and sent to prison.
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00:00 Basically, all I've done is keep my promise.
00:05 Trump is facing several different kinds of trials.
00:08 In a civil case, the damages are measured in dollars.
00:12 In a criminal case, the consequences can get pretty severe pretty quick.
00:16 That can lead to jail time, it can lead to house arrest, it can lead to all sorts of
00:20 different consequences.
00:21 I'm Walt Hickey, I cover politics at Business Insider, and I'm going to tell you what's
00:24 actually going down.
00:25 Court's in session.
00:27 The Manhattan Hush Money trial, essentially this alleges that Trump illegally paid Stormy
00:33 Daniels to be quiet about their affair, and as a result, constituted a crime in the city
00:38 of New York.
00:39 It was interesting because it was the first one to come down, and so this was the one
00:42 that was like, "Oh wow, Trump's been charged with a crime.
00:44 He's one of the first presidents to be charged with a crime."
00:47 This does come with potential prison time, up to four years potentially.
00:51 If he does lose, he will not be able to pardon himself because it's not federal.
00:55 So do I think that he will face prison?
00:57 No, I do not think he's going to face prison.
00:59 He's an American president.
01:00 They don't put presidents in jail, and it would be ridiculous, just from a security
01:04 perspective, just to try to handle that.
01:07 And so the thinking goes is that there's very few situations in which this man genuinely
01:12 sees the inside of a prison cell.
01:14 More likely, talking house arrest.
01:16 So in terms of what it means for him electorally, it's a lot of felonies.
01:20 34 is a lot.
01:21 That's a very high number, and that's not really great.
01:24 That being said, he's got nothing but token opposition in the primaries.
01:29 It's not like he's going to lose the primaries over some Manhattan district attorney, right?
01:34 And so as a result, it's not the biggest issue for him.
01:37 I think he's got far bigger issues going on down south.
01:41 Georgia case is a complicated one because it involves a lot of people.
01:44 So Trump himself has been hit with 13 different charges.
01:48 These charges could potentially lead to prison time, but as we've mentioned, this man is
01:51 not going to go to prison.
01:53 They also involve 18 co-conspirators because at the crux of this case is a conspiracy allegation.
02:00 The idea that these folks conspired to steal an election, essentially.
02:04 And so the charges that they're filed under is something called RICO.
02:07 RICO is essentially used against corrupt organizations, so to speak.
02:11 It was pioneered in many ways by a promising young attorney named Rudy Giuliani in taking
02:16 down the mob in the late 80s and early 90s.
02:18 And now Rudy Giuliani has been charged in RICO.
02:21 So you know, the world's funny.
02:22 It's funny sometimes.
02:24 Listen, overturning election doesn't look great.
02:26 It's not a great thing for a person who's running for president to do.
02:28 That being said, this case has some other issues going on with it when it comes to timing,
02:32 whether or not they're actually going to get this one in before the election goes down.
02:35 And it's also got some issues when it comes to Trump has really been litigating it in
02:38 the press.
02:39 He's been going very hard against the district attorney who has charged him with these things,
02:43 and it remains to be seen how that's going to turn out.
02:47 The documents case.
02:48 This one's interesting.
02:49 This is part of Jack Smith, who is a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Trump.
02:54 This is essentially looks into what he did when he left office, which by all evidence
03:00 is take an enormous amount of classified documents to his house in Mar-a-Lago.
03:05 He took genuinely a horde of these things.
03:08 The photographs are rather damning.
03:10 This is a very potentially damaging case for him.
03:13 He faces a lot of charges for this.
03:15 On the other hand, Trump has two very good things going for him in this case.
03:19 One of them is Judge Eileen Cannon, who has been very helpful to his side of the case
03:25 when it comes to timing, when it comes to jurisdiction, and when it comes to all sorts
03:30 of different manners of prosecuting it.
03:32 The Cannon incidentally is a Trump appointed judge, so not bad, playing a little bit of
03:36 home field advantage, so to speak.
03:38 The other thing going for him is that following the discovery of a genuine dragon's horde
03:42 of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, several other former presidents and vice presidents,
03:47 including Joe Biden, cop to, "Yes, we do actually.
03:50 Also, I have a little bit at home too."
03:52 These gentlemen all returned their documents at one point or another, and there were considerably
03:55 fewer of them, to be clear, than Trump had.
03:57 I'm going to crank this one up a little bit.
03:59 I mean, listen, if this were a normal government official, if it was just a guy from the NSA
04:06 who had this stuff, they would bury him underneath the jail.
04:08 This has happened many times before, so this could be a situation in which he does potentially
04:13 face penalties that, owing to his position as a former president, are potentially mitigated.
04:19 But nevertheless, it looks very bad.
04:23 The D.C. insurrection case.
04:26 This is the big one.
04:27 Trump has essentially been charged with conspiring to overturn an election and lead the insurrection
04:33 on January 6th.
04:34 The reason that we have laws against insurrections in this country is because we had one.
04:37 It's called the Civil War.
04:38 It wasn't a great time for the people of this country.
04:40 And so as a result, we would like to prevent that again.
04:42 The charges that he faces in D.C. are bad.
04:45 They have a lot of penalties with them.
04:47 There's a very strong possibility that Donald Trump will be facing a three-month trial in
04:51 D.C. over the course of the months at which he would ordinarily be campaigning for the
04:56 presidency across this country.
04:58 It's going to be in the news every day leading up to an election.
05:01 This one is probably the one that's going to keep him up at night and make him very
05:05 frustrated with how things are going.
05:07 So yeah, that's going to be a rough one.
05:09 A civil case that Trump has had in New York is the E. Jean Carroll case.
05:13 And this is kind of two cases, one of which was ended last year.
05:18 And that was a $5 million verdict against Trump that found him liable for, number one,
05:24 libeling E. Jean Carroll, and number two, sexual assault.
05:27 And following that case, Trump repeatedly denied that he knew E. Jean Carroll.
05:33 And E. Jean Carroll saw that this was liable and said, "I'm going to sue you again."
05:38 And so sued again in the city of New York.
05:41 And that eventually did turn up a verdict against Trump yet again.
05:45 That was an $83.3 million verdict that came down in January.
05:50 It's going to hit him in his wallet.
05:51 He does have to pay that money to the court, which is a lot of money.
05:57 And he also has to, you know, go through the rest of the election as a person who has been
06:00 found liable for sexual assault, which is going to be a deeply unpleasant moniker that
06:04 he will have to bear.
06:05 And for that reason, I think that this one is actually fairly severe.
06:10 So if he were to be convicted in one of these, and, you know, hey, let's get real hypothetical
06:14 here.
06:15 Yeah, he could absolutely run from prison if that were a thing that happened to him.
06:18 You're allowed to do that.
06:19 There's nothing in the rule book that says you can.
06:21 So if he becomes president, like, he could really just pardon himself.
06:24 He could make all of this go away.
06:26 And at the same time, the question is, will he become the president if he has all of this
06:30 facing him down?
06:32 Thank you.
06:33 God bless you.
06:34 And God bless America.
06:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]