Donald Trump is expected to become the country's first ex-president to stand trial later this month. Trump's trial in New York, scheduled to begin on April 15, is one of four cases in which he must stand trial.
The cases raise broader questions about the durability of the American justice system and the public's trust in democracy. In authoritarian states, opposition figures are routinely jailed on false or questionable charges, and who is prosecuted can depend on who is in power. Even in liberal democracies, former heads of state facing investigations and criminal charges have tried to portray these cases as armed, political prosecutions. Trump has pleaded not guilty in each of his criminal cases. The presidential election is still months away, but polls have shown that Trump's charges have not hurt him politically but have led to a surge in GOP support. In Russia, for example, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's harshest critics, was sentenced to a total of three decades in prison and died in a remote penal colony in February. And in China, President Xi Jinping's main political rival, Sun Zhengcai, was jailed for corruption in 2018.