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With more indictments, social media meltdowns, and prime-time rants than actual achievements, you'd think Donald Trump would be dead last on anyone's list for a second round in the White House. But alas, the unthinkable happened: here he is again, about to return to the White House as the 47th president — just one term after his first. Not only does this make him the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve non-consecutive terms, but he's also the only one to do it with a giant legal mess in tow, including a conviction. And the ultimate plot twist? His 2024 win might just be the golden key he needs to wiggle out of his legal woes.
Trump's victory is incredibly ironic, given the lengthy list of charges that somehow didn't keep him off the ballot. His legal battles include, but are not limited to, attempts to overturn the 2020 election (yes, the one he lost), a court ruling for sexual abuse and defamation, mishandling of classified documents, paying hush money to a porn star, and accusations of inflating his net worth. And while a few of these cases are still in legal limbo, the consensus among experts? He's very likely to use his power to get out all of these — it's just a matter of when. "Basically, his criminal problems have gone away," Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president and cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, explained to Fortune. "The question is, Will they go away now, November, or December, or January when Trump takes office?"
In fact, the road to absolution seems to have already started. Just mere days after he was declared to be the 47th president, rumors of justice officials potentially sweeping his cases have started swirling.
It's very likely that Trump could evade his legal troubles after he's sworn in
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The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly getting a head start on dropping Donald Trump's cases. According to The Washington Post, DOJ officials are working with special counsel Jack Smith (the same guy who filed two federal cases against Trump) on plans to tie up those legal loose ends before Trump steps back into the Oval Office. After all, prosecuting a sitting president isn't exactly DOJ policy, and in two months, Trump will be shielded from it once again. And if the DOJ doesn't drop it? Trump has a simple plan: fire Smith himself. "It's so easy. I would fire him within two seconds," he said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt in October 2024. "He'll be one of the first things addressed." In fact, he's not afraid of the repercussions, including a possible impeachment. "I don't think they'll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith. Jack Smith is a scoundrel," he added. "He's a very dishonest man."
As for his other legal issues — the hush money case in New York and the election meddling charges in Georgia — it's likely Trump could well run out the clock on them until his term is up. Even if a sentence somehow comes through, no one expects him to serve time while running the country. But ultimately, experts believe Trump is ready to pull every trick in the book to wipe his slate clean. "They can continue to do what they're doing, but it's not going to really matter if, at the end of the day, Trump is able to appoint an attorney general who will then make a motion to dismiss the charges," Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman told ABC News.
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