What if Donald Trump is elected with criminal charges still looming?
Donald Trump won the presidency even as criminal charges against him still loomed, a series of extraordinary complications would ensue. The indictment Tuesday on federal charges stemming from his attempts to remain in power after his 2020 election loss added to the mounting legal peril Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party, faces as he campaigns for a second term in the White House.
In New York, he is accused of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment while special counsel Jack Smith also previously accused Trump of mishandling national security secrets. If a federal case were pending on Inauguration Day, Trump could simply use his power as president to force the Justice Department to drop the matter, as he has suggested he might do.
(It is not yet clear when a trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election will start. The classified documents case, which will be tried in Florida, has a date set for May, but that could change depending on how pretrial arguments unfold.) But the Constitution does not give presidents supervisory authority over state prosecutors, so that would not work for the state inquiries in New York and Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, has indicated she is nearing a decision on charges in her own election-interference investigation.
The most Trump could probably do is try to delay a trial over any state charges that may be pending. In the past, the Justice Department has taken the position that criminal legal proceedings against a president while he is in office would be unconstitutional because it would interfere with his ability to perform his duties.
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