How Donald Trump is poised to avoid pre-election trials in three out of four of his criminal cases

As last summer came to a close, the four criminal cases that had been brought against former President Donald Trump posed both extraordinary political peril as well as the very real threat that the 2024 Republican White House front-runner would be convicted by multiple juries before the first ballot was cast.

As last summer came to a close, the four criminal cases that had been brought against former President Donald Trump posed both extraordinary political peril as well as the very real threat that the 2024 Republican White House front-runner would be convicted by multiple juries before the first ballot was cast. What a difference a year made – or, perhaps more accurately, didn’t make. With Monday’s Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling likely preventing a trial in the federal election subversion case before the election, Trump is poised to avoid pre-election trials in the three most significant criminal prosecutions he faces. He was convicted in the fourth. But the hush money case brought by the Manhattan district attorney was widely viewed as the least serious and most tangential to the choice voters will make on November 5, as it used a controversial legal theory to target conduct that has been publicly known for nearly a decade. It is possible that he won’t even receive prison time in the case. “The sad thing is, of the four, it’s the one that feeds Trump’s narrative of political persecution, which is tragic,” said Ty Cobb, who served as Trump’s White House lawyer during the special counsel Russia investigation but now opposes his reelection.