Game over for Trump prosecutions at least while he’s president: legal reporters

“Former President Trump a year ago was staring down four potential criminal trials on 91 charges and decades in prison,” The Hill reports. “Trump staked his defense on winning back the White House, a strategy that has now paid off with his political victory.”

Legal reporters Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld predict President-elect Donald Trump’s prosecutions, especially federal, will come to an abrupt halt or at least face massive delays as he re-enters the White House.

“With impending control of the Justice Department, he can shutter his federal criminal cases,” as Trump said he would through eliminating special counsel Jack Smith’s office, and he could also simply tell DOJ to “abandon its current appeal seeking to revive” the case over mishandled classified documents, which a district judge dismissed by finding Smith’s appointment unconstitutional, they report.

While Trump can’t fire Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or Fulton County DA Fani Willis, judges were keenly interested in the alleged timeline for prosecution in the event of a Trump victory, and New York state judge Juan Merchan’s scheduled Nov. 26 sentencing of Trump may not go forward at all.