As his multi-pronged attacks on an array of investigators Tuesday night made plain, the Stormy Daniels charges President Donald Trump is confronting in New York are just the beginning of his legal worries.
Trump is facing legal exposure on a number of fronts, with prosecutors across regions and at the state, local, and national level. It is conceivable that by the time the 2024 campaign is in full swing, he will be facing multiple indictments while still contending with civil cases.
Trump spoke Tuesday of his refusal to try to settle one case against him, and amid his combative approach he has taken to trying to raise funds by highlighting the potential 136 years of prison he could face for alleged false business statements alone.
Here is a summary of the probes Trump is up against now through various parts of the judicial system.
Former President Donald Trump faces legal peril in multiple jurisdictions amid several probes. He attacked many of his investigators on Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago
January 6 investigation
Special Counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the sprawling probe over January 6 and the effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results.
Smith has said almost nothing about the avenues he is pursuing, but there have been notable clues in the people his team of prosecutors have brought before a federal grand jury.
Among them are top former White House advisors to Trump, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was on the call when Trump phoned the Georgia secretary of state and said he needed to ‘find 11,780 votes.’
Prosecutors are also examining the ‘fake electors’ scheme that played out in multiple states Joe Biden won where Trump allies were claiming fraud. This was an area that the House January 6 committee, which turned over its report and materials to the Justice Department, also explored.
With his subpoenas holding up in court, the array of key witnesses who have spoken to a grand jury have armed Smith with new information. CNN reported Wednesday that top national security officials testified that they repeatedly warned Trump that the feds didn’t have the authority to seize voting machines.
The testimony suggests Smith is examining Trump’s demands to overturn the election even while being advised against the validity of many of his claims.
If the legal peril could be reflected in the velocity of Trump’s attacks on Smith. On Tuesday, he called him a ‘lunatic.’
Trump attacked special counsel Jack Smith as a ‘lunatic’
Documents at Mar-a-Lago
AG Merrick Garland gave Smith control of a probe of Trump’s possession of material marked ‘classified’ at Mar-a-Lago – an inquiry that could implicate both the Presidential Records Act and laws governing potential obstruction.
Trump himself addressed some of the areas prosecutors may be exploring during his blistering 25-minute speech from Mar-a-Lago, when he claimed he had the authority as president to declassify government material, and saying he brought ‘clothes’ and other items to his Florida home in broad daylight.
The matter isn’t as clear cut as Trump described it. Records laws make presidential records the property of the government when the chief executive leaves office, and if Trump did classify the material, no evidence has emerged of any formal process to do so.
Other prominent people have been found to possess classified material, and some have been convicted of illegal possession of it. And as Trump noted, President Joe Biden has also been found to have material marked classified in his possession – some from his time as vice president.
It wasn’t immediately known whether Trump’s latest statement about the case, in his Tuesday night speech, would have value as evidence, when he referenced negotiations and said he brought materials ‘with me’ to his home.
‘We were negotiating in very good faith, proper way, in order to return some or all of the documents that I openly and in very plain sight brought with me to Mar-a-Lago from our beautiful White House,’ he said.
Trump spoke about bringing materials ‘with me to Mar-a-Lago’ when he left the White House
Election overturn in Georgia
The Georgia case has been advancing, and Fulton County DA Fani Willis has already obtained a sealed indictment from a special grand jury.
The decision now lies with her whether to try to bring charges before a grand jury to try to charge Trump with illegally seeing to interfere in the presidential election in the state.
Here some of the key evidence has already been revealed, including Trump’s call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early 2021.
Willis began her probe in February 2021 after the infamous call.
Trump’s lawyers are trying to bump Willis from the case.
The separate special grand jury forewoman gave a string of TV interviews where she seemed to indicate a slew of people could face charges.
With the ball in Willis’ court, the next move is expected to come this spring.
FILE – Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, right, must decide whether to convene a grand jury after a special grand jury completed its work
New York civil case that could hobble Trump’s businesses
New York State AG Letitia James sued the Trump Organization after rolling out a trove of information about company business practices.
She has accused the company of vastly inflating valuations of properties when seeking financing, then low-balling the numbers in tax filings.
Trump defended his company on Tuesday night.
‘They’ve got a problem with the case,’ he said.
He said his company had ‘very little debt,’ and accused James of ‘investigating me to save banks.’ But Trump said the lenders, who include Deutsche Bank and others, ‘made almost $200 million off Donald Trump and they liked me very much. We never missed a payment,’ he said.
In this case, Trump is fighting for more than money.
James wants Trump executives, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump, to be prohibited from running any business in the state.
Trump on Tuesday talk up his younger son, Barron, as having a future role.
‘And Barron will be great some day. He’s tall and he’s smart,’ Trump said.
Sometimes such matters get dispensed with through negotiations, a fine, and a negotiated statement of guilt. But Trump has shown no interest in this path.
‘They want to settle the case, but I want no part of that,’ he said Tuesday.
New York AG Letitia James has sued the Trump Organization over its accounting practices
Stormy Daniels case
The case that brought Trump’s legal woes to a head is Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s case about the $130,000 ‘hush’ payments he reimbursed to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Although the indictment and statement of facts unsealed Tuesday only sketch out the case, it indicated how prosecutors might weave together a case.
In his press conference, Bragg, who Trump has attacked repeatedly, calling him ‘soft on crime’ and going after his wife for partisan affiliations, described the payoff to Daniels as a way to influence the 2016 presidential election. The statement of facts for the case also mentions an intent to mask payments to Trump fixer Michael Cohn as ‘legal fees’ as part of a plan to conceal the true purpose from state tax authorities.
Trump allies have attacked the case as less than meets the eye, but it will linger for months unless Trump’s lawyers can prevail by quickly dismissing it. The next hearing is set by Judge Juan Merchan, who Trump also attacked, in December.
A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict former president Donald Trump over hush money paid to pornstar Stormy Daniels
