President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory has thrown his unprecedented legal prosecutions into disarray, with federal cases likely ending and state charges facing years of delay before his 2029 departure from office — potentially putting them past the statute of limitations.
Special counsel Jack Smith has just 75 days to shut down two federal prosecutions before Trump’s inauguration. T
he classified documents case, already dismissed by Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon who ruled Smith’s appointment unconstitutional, involved over 100 classified records recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
The January 6 election interference case, scheduled for March, stalled after the Supreme Court granted presidents broad immunity in July.
“It’s really a question of how the Justice Department is going to dismount from the limb it’s gotten itself out on,” former Attorney General Bill Barr said Wednesday.
While Smith could proactively withdraw charges, his team may prefer to let Trump fulfill his promise to fire the special counsel “within two seconds” of taking office.
The Manhattan case, where Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts related to Stormy Daniels hush money payments, faces a November 26 sentencing date.
Judge Juan Merchan is weighing dismissal based on presidential immunity, though legal experts suggest any potential jail sentence would almost certainly be deferred. Trump will become the first president to enter office with a criminal record if the conviction stands.
In Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis faces multiple hurdles in prosecuting Trump and 18 co-defendants for alleged election interference.
A December 5 appeals court hearing could remove Willis over her sexual relationship with former prosecutor Nathan Wade, which Judge Scott McAfee called a “tremendous lapse in judgment.” Six of the original 41 counts were already dismissed.
Even if Willis maintains control, legal experts believe the Supreme Court would block Trump’s prosecution until 2029, citing a 1973 Justice Department policy, reaffirmed in 2000, that sitting presidents cannot be tried.
“If she tries, this court will stop her,” said University of Virginia Law Professor Saikrishna Prakash.
Willis could still pursue cases against co-defendants like Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani. “To try to be president, but also have all your dirty laundry aired out in Fulton County Superior Court and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Georgia State University Professor Anthony Michael Kreis, “that’s going to be a massive political headache.”