President-elect Trump pulled off a decisive, if not unexpected, victory, making him the first convicted felon ever to win a presidential election. But his comeback poses unprecedented questions, such as what that means for his various criminal and civil cases.
Legal experts say his ascension to the highest office in the land means all those court issues will vanish. “The delay in prosecuting, the time for investigating, and Trump’s own delay tactics — along with actually winning the 2024 election — let him run out the clock,” legal scholar Richard Hasen tells Katie Couric Media. “If he didn’t win, these cases would be continuing.”
Here’s what we know about the status of his myriad of criminal and civil cases.
Donald Trump’s criminal suits
New York hush-money case
After months of delay, Judge Juan M. Merchan sentenced Trump to an “unconditional discharge” in his New York hush-money case. This means the president-elect won’t face jail, probation, or even a fine after being convicted of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to cover up a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Merchan signaled no punishment was the only lawful solution, given Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution during his upcoming White House term. “Donald Trump, the ordinary citizen, Donald Trump, the criminal defendant, would not be entitled to such considerable protections,” he told the courtroom.
Still, Merchan’s decision will make him the first-ever criminal convict to take office. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly appealed the case, called the sentence a “hoax” and a “political witch hunt.”
Jan. 6 case
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Smith’s request to drop all four felony charges against Trump in connection to trying to subvert the election in the lead-up to the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Per the president-elect’s indictment, this included conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Smith wrote in his filing that he consulted with the Justice Department about whether an ongoing prosecution against Trump might continue. Still, he said officials stuck with the agency’s longstanding position that it can’t charge a sitting president. “The Government’s position on the merits of the defendant’s prosecution has not changed. But the circumstances have,” Smith’s office wrote in the filing.
Smith also left open the possibility that the DOJ might reinstate the charges when Trump leaves office in January 2029. But it’s unclear if officials will even be interested in reviving the case by that point, especially given that Trump will be 82 years old.
Before he steps down, there’s also still a possibility that Smith could write a report that summarizes his findings. “The big question is whether the report that the special counsel must prepare to the attorney general will be made public in any form,” says Hasen. “That will be up to Merrick Garland.”
Hasen bemoaned Garland for waiting too long to open an investigation and appoint a special counsel. “Garland and the DOJ pursued a strategy of going first after those who invaded the Capitol on January 6 rather than focusing on those who tried to subvert the outcome of the election in the period before January 6, including Trump,” he says. “He waited a very long time before appointing Jack Smith to investigate the former President, which put the work years behind where it should have been.”
Classified documents case
Trump was charged with 40 criminal counts for illegally hoarding classified records from the White House at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. However, Judge Aileen Cannon later dropped the case in July after siding with Trump and ruling that the Justice Department had unlawfully appointed special counsel Smith.
“The Special Counsel’s position effectively usurps that important legislative authority, transferring it to a Head of Department, and in the process threatening the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers,” Cannon wrote in a 93-page order.
Smith then appealed Cannon’s decision and tried to have Trump’s charges reinstated, but he has since dropped this bid following Trump’s win. In a filing calling for his challenge to be dismissed, the special counsel said that after talking with the DOJ, “the department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”
Since then, Cannon has blocked the release of Smith’s report detailing his investigation, though it’s only temporary. The injunction lasts three days as the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighs the decision following a request from Trump co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira. (The pair filed a motion on Jan. 6 to prevent any findings from coming out, citing the judge’s previous ruling that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional.) In granting their request, Cannon said she was trying “to preserve the status quo” until the higher court makes a decision on the issue.
Georgia election interference case
Trump faces a second election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, where he tried overturning the 2020 election results.
But now one of the leading prosecutors has been removed from the case. The Georgia Court of Appeals upheld Trump’s indictment but disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case after her romantic relationship with a fellow prosecutor came to light. “After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the court ruled.
Meanwhile, Willis’ office has appealed the ruling, but that process could take several months. Even if she proves successful, she will have to wait until Trump is out of office to try him since the trial is expected to take months.
But if her appeal doesn’t prove successful, the case would be referred to the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, which would have to find another prosecutor to take on the sprawling case.
“The Georgia case will almost certainly be put on hold until after Trump leaves office if it ever happens,” says Hasen. “The courts are likely to say that a criminal trial cannot happen while a president is in office given the distraction.”
Donald Trump’s civil suits
Trump’s biggest financial blow stems from his civil business fraud case brought on by New York Attorney General Letitia James. In February 2024, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay over $354 million in damages for inflating the value of his company’s assets, which has since swelled to more than $500 million with interest. After the election, Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, asked James’ office to voluntarily dismiss the case in order to promote “unity,” but James denied that request.
The former president has also defended himself in two sizable defamation cases from columnist E. Jean Carroll. The businessman lost both of these to Carroll: Once in 2023 and again in 2024 after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and subsequently defaming her. Two juries awarded Carroll $5 million and $83 million. Trump has since appealed both of these lawsuits, one of which was rejected. Still, the president-elect has vowed to continue to fight the case, and arguments regarding the $83 million verdict are still pending.
“I tried to tell you,” Carroll warned on X, following Trump’s win.
Even though the criminal federal election interference case against Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot was dismissed, he’s still facing eight related civil suits from law enforcement personnel who were injured in the attack and some Democratic members of Congress.
There’s also the defamation suit brought against him in October by members of the Central Park Five. The five — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — sued Trump over his remarks about them during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris. At the time, he falsely claimed that the men pleaded guilty when they were tried in connection with the assault and rape of a woman who had been running in Central Park in 1989 and that the victim had died.
Unlike his criminal indictments, these civil cases won’t go away because there is some precedent for this, thanks to President Bill Clinton. In 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that lawsuits against sitting presidents could proceed if they did not involve the president’s actions while in office.
Can Trump just pardon himself?
A sitting president can pardon himself — at least in theory. But such a move has never been tested before, and Larson says it would be “clearly unprecedented.”
“There’s no legal authority that directly speaks to this question,” Larson tells us. “He could try to pardon himself, but courts would ultimately have to determine its legal effect. It seems a more likely scenario is that he passes power to [Vice President J.D.] Vance, and Vance then issues a pardon to Trump as acting president.”
But it’s worth noting that presidential pardons only apply to federal cases, not state or civil ones. So, the president-elect might be unable to escape all his legal woes.
