• Winning the 2024 election may help Donald Trump in his four criminal cases.
• Trump has vowed to fire the special counsel who brought two federal cases against him.
• Being president-elect could also help him delay his state cases in Georgia and New York.

donald trumpTrump’s presidential victory is also a victory as he seeks to resolve his four criminal charges.

His victory may largely free Trump from having to deal with his criminal cases for the foreseeable future.experts told Business Insider.

“Politics aside, there is a lot at stake legally for Trump” in the November 5 electionsformer federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani predicted early Tuesday.

Here’s what will happen with Trump’s four criminal cases (two federal and two state) going forward.

The secret money case in New York

Trump, the first president of the United States convicted of a crimeIt is dated November 26 manhattan sentence date on your calendar.

He faces up to four years in prison for his conviction in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his $130,000 hush payment to the adult film actor. Stormy Daniel.

There is a possibility that the sentencing date could be delayed. Trump has vowed to fight his impeachment and conviction in the New York appeals courts. He will likely argue that the evidence in the case includes acts that took place while he was carrying out his official role as president, evidence that would be prohibited under the landmark US law of July. Presidential immunity from the Supreme Court decision.

Once he is sentenced, experts say further appeals could keep him jail sentence on hold for years, although a prison sentence is very unlikelya quartet of former New York judges previously told BI.

Winning the presidency now could delay things even further, as Trump could argue that he is too busy running the country to attend to his personal legal problems.

Before the election results, Cornell Law School professor Michael Dorf predicted that if Trump won, he would quickly file court papers to delay sentencing until he was no longer president.

Rahmani, president and co-founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said he does not believe Trump will be sentenced to prison “regardless of the outcome of the election.”

“Trump’s victory makes it logistically impossible and the certainty that he will not receive time,” Rahmani said.

Trump’s federal cases

Trump was indicted on two federal charges, both brought by a special prosecutor Jack Smithwho would be eligible for a presidential pardon, although a self-pardon has never been attempted.

Once president, Trump could ask his attorney general to fire Smith. He could also ask the courts to stop federal prosecutions, since there is a long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted while in office or attempt to pardon himself, Dorf said.

Trump said in a conservative radio interview last month that if elected, he would fire Smith “in two seconds.”

Justice Department regulations stipulate that a special counsel can only be fired for good cause, but Trump could have his attorney general rescind that regulation, Dorf said.

Firing Smith “is basically his right as president, although I would expect Smith to resign before then, as a matter of course,” said Michel Paradis, a lawyer who teaches national security and constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

“The key thing to watch would be what Jack Smith does between Election Day and Jan. 20 to potentially protect those prosecutions from interference,” Paradis said.

“There’s not much I can do to toughen them up since, at the end of the day, the president controls the Justice Department,” Paradis added.

Paradis said that before Trump was sworn in, Smith could try to suspend both proceedings, arguing that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to both federal charges.

When asked for comment, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told BI: “Liar Kamala Harris and corrupt Joe Biden’s witch hunts against President Trump have imploded as has their failed campaign, and “all should be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision.” decision on immunity and other vital jurisprudence”.

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case of federal interference in the elections

Even if Trump had lost, Smith’s prosecution of Trump on charges that he attempted annul the 2020 elections It wouldn’t necessarily have moved forward at full speed.

Citizen Trump could have continued to challenge the election interference case based on presidential immunitythe experts said.

In July, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion giving presidents broad protection from being prosecuted for official acts while in office. The opinion also prohibits the use of evidence of official acts in any prosecution of a former president, even for charges unrelated to official acts.

In August, Smith won a revised indictment that reduced the charges against Trump to cover acts he undertook as a private citizen seeking office.

The case of classified federal documents

Another federal charge against Trump, alleging that he failed to return classified government documents he took from the White House, was fired in july by Trump-appointed US district judge Aileen Canonwho said Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution.

The dismissal, which argues that Congress should have approved Smith’s appointment, is now being appealed by Smith to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Smith’s appeal turns on what he calls “the long tradition of special counsel appointments by Attorneys General.”

The Georgia election interference case

He Georgia election interference case against Trump and 18 of his associates remains in legal limbothanks to the defendants’ efforts to get the Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willisdisqualified from the case.

In May, a Georgia appeals court agreed to consider Trump’s attempt to remove Willis from the case.

Lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants argued that Willis had a conflict of interest in the case because he improperly benefited from a romantic relationship with Nathan Wadethe Atlanta lawyer he hired as special prosecutor.

After an evidentiary hearing earlier this year, a judge ruled that Willis and his office could remain on the case as long as Wade stepped aside, and Wade announced his resignation hours later.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the Georgia charge.

If Trump had lost the election, the case could have moved forward, although he likely would have moved to have it dismissed based on the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.

However, as the winner of the election, he can file papers with the Georgia court “saying this needs to be suspended while I am president because it is simply not consistent with federal supremacy for a state to prosecute a sitting president.” Dorf, an expert in constitutional law, told BI on Tuesday.

“He doesn’t control the prosecutors, so they can’t be fired, and he can’t pardon himself because these are state crimes, so his only option in state cases is to suspend them,” Dorf said.

November 6, 2026: This story was updated after the election was called for Donald Trump.