The other pending legal cases facing Donald Trump

Donald Trump's new indictment, this time for violating laws protecting classified documents, may not be the last. The former president of the United States and current Republican candidate for the White House faces numerous pending legal cases for the most diverse causes: from the illegal use of campaign funds to his role in the assault of a mob on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, through attempts to alter the outcome of the November 2020 elections.

The real estate mogul must appear next Tuesday in a federal court in Miami, as he has told himself in his social networks. It's not the first time the former TV celebrity has been cited in court in recent times.

Trump had become last March the first former president of the United States formally charged. The Manhattan prosecutor's office charged him with 34 counts of falsifying accounting records for the payments that his former confidant, Michael Cohen, had made on his behalf to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 so that she would keep silent about her alleged sexual relationship and her election campaign would not be harmed. After a first hearing, in which the charges were presented and the former tenant of the White House pleaded not guilty, the trial is set for March 25, 2024, when the Republican Party's primary season will be in full swing.

The former president's lawyers are trying to get the case moved from Manhattan courthouses to federal court.

The former president returned to New York courts in April, this time for a civil case. The writer E Jean Carroll accused him of a rape that occurred in the nineties and of having defamed her after she divulged the story in 2019. A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and ordered him to pay the plaintiff five million dollars in damages. The lawyers of the former president are trying to get a reduction of that fine or that a new trial be held.

But the most significant cases, both for the criminal consequences they can entail and for the political repercussions they can generate, are yet to come.

The case of the assault on the Capitol

Special prosecutor Jack Smith, who has led the investigation into classified documents found in Trump's possession at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, has also investigated, on behalf of the Justice Department, the former president's role in the acts after his defeat in the November 2020 elections that culminated in the storming of the Capitol.

His former vice president and current rival in the Republican race for the White House, Mike Pence, testified before a grand jury in Washington in April, after Trump lost an appeal with which he tried to block the statement of his former running mate.

That investigation also examines a plot that would have presented false lists of electors – the representatives of the states that on January 6, 2021 had to present the votes of their constituencies in Congress, to corroborate the triumph of Joe Biden in the elections – and thus prevent legislators from certifying the Democrat as the new US president.

A special committee in the House of Representatives that investigated the assault recommended the Justice Department bring charges against Trump for conspiracy to make a false official statement and incitement to insurrection, among other reasons.

Alteration of election results in Georgia

Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is investigating whether Trump and others associated with him tried to alter the outcome of the 2020 election in that state.

The investigation has its origin in a call from the then president to the local secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffesperger, to "find" in his territory enough votes to turn around Biden's advantage in those elections. But it has since expanded to include, among other things, other calls from Trump and associates to Georgia officials after the election and baseless allegations of voter fraud made to state lawmakers.

Willis has hinted that the possible indictments will come before September 1, In a letter to the chief judge of the county superior court, Ural Glanville, he has pointed out that much of his staff will work remotely the first three weeks of August and has asked the judges not to schedule trials and hearings in person during part of that time for security reasons.

Experts believe Trump may have violated at least three election laws in that state and can be charged with conspiracy to commit voter fraud, criminal solicitation to perpetrate voter fraud and intentional interference in the development of electoral tasks.

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