From 19 of January, when the United States Senate resumes its sessions , Donald Trump may be subjected to impeachment for the second time before that instance.
The president will have to face the impeachment approved last week by the House of Representatives, which accuses him of having incited the assault on Congress carried out on January 6 by a crowd of his supporters.
Trump rejects these allegations and claims that he is the victim of a witch hunt .
If he is convicted, the procedure will not put an end to his mandate as it expires on 23 January, when Joe Biden will take office as the new president.
The consequences for Trump could be reflected rather in a eventual ban from holding public office and / or at a loss of benefits tions that correspond to him as a former president, such as a life pension.
Being Trump a millionaire, he probably won’t lose sleep over losing that income.
What he may be able to do worrying is the series of pending trials that you will have to face once you are out of the White House.
As President of the United States, Trump enjoyed unique protection against legal action , whether criminal or civil.
Now, after losing the presidential election of 90021446, you will once again be an ordinary citizen.
That means that he will lose his privileges as president and will be in the crosshairs of litigants and prosecutors.
“Once you are out of office, the atmosphere will change,” Daniel R. Alonso, former United States and New York State federal prosecutor, told the BBC.
“He will no longer have the reality or threat of presidential power to thwart investigations.”
A wide-ranging criminal investigation in New York is the most serious legal concern for Trump and his real estate company, the Trump Organization.
On top of that, there are a number of lawsuits ranging from accusations of fraud by a member of his family up to sexual harassment by a columnist.
A legal storm is brewing. Here we consider how Trump’s six biggest legal battles can unfold.
1. The Secret Payment Allegations
What we know: Playboy model Karen McDougal, adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and claims of a conspiracy of silence.
This was the essence of the so-called secret payments scandal.
Both women said they had had sex with Trump and received payments to keep secret before the presidential elections of 2016.
When they spoke in 2018, launched political dynamite under Trump’s presidency, lighting the fuse of two criminal investigations.
The first focused on violations of federal or national laws and the role of Michael Cohen, former personal attorney and Trump “fixer.”
Under investigation, Cohen admitted have arranged the payments to the two women s.
The payments were processed as campaign finance violations and Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail in 2018.
Cohen alleged that Trump had “ordered” him to make the payments, but no charges were brought against the president. Why?
In the first place, to indict Trump, prosecutors would have had to show that he had, in fact, ordered Cohen to make those payments.
Second, even if prosecutors had sufficient evidence, it is against US government policy to indict a sitting president on federal criminal charges, legal experts say .
Case closed, right? Well not exactly. This is where it gets technical.
Simply put, a second criminal investigation into payments is still ongoing in New York .
We know that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is examining whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to payments.
What we don’t know is if Vance has evidence to press criminal charges. That matters.
What could happen next : Falsifying business records is a wrongdoing under New York law.
A wrongdoing is a misdemeanor punishable by a jail term of up to one year.
Now here’s the tricky part for Vance.
There is a two-year time limit for filing criminal charges for a misdemeanor in New York.
“So, because those payments occurred more than two years ago, it appears (prosecutors) have had no luck,” Alonso said.
That said, there are other possibilities .
In New York, falsifying business records can be considered a felony if it is carried out to hide other crimes , such as tax fraud.
Serious crimes are crimes that can be prosecuted over a longer period and are punishable by harsher prison terms.
Still, the path to prosecution is uncertain.
It is unclear if Trump can be prosecuted under New York law for campaign finance violations, the federal crime for which Cohen was incarcerated.
This is where the other strands of Vance’s research come in.
2. Investigation of tax and bank fraud
What we know: is a “successful political work,” said a Trump Organization lawyer about the Vance investigation in August 2020.
It was an enraged statement.
Vance had just issued a request for documents, known as a subpoena.
He demanded to see years of financial records, including the Holy Grail: Trump’s tax returns, eight years of them.
Since then,, arguing in courts that amounts to political harassment.
In October, a federal appeals court disagreed, and made their tax returns available to prosecutors.
In fact, Vance has highlighted the importance of Trump’s tax returns in court documents.
In requesting the returns in August, Vance referred to laughed at “public reports of possibly extensive and prolonged criminal conduct at the Trump Organization,” including allegations of possible insurance and bank fraud.
Another court filing in September mentioned tax fraud as a hypothetical crime that could be established, if evidence is found to support it.
In New York, some types of tax fraud can be charged as felonies that can carry long prison terms.
At the moment, however, the “public reports” of possible crimes cited by Vance’s office are merely investigation grounds, nothing more.
What could happen next: Trump is expected to appeal the demand to deliver his tax returns to the Supreme Court.
There, the matter can be resolved.
For Trump, the stakes are high.
“The most important criminal investigations are those that explore his statements fi scales and banking, “Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University, told the BBC.
” But it has not yet become clear if there is a criminal case. “
If Vance obtains Trump’s tax returns, a criminal case may or may not be obvious.
Either way, Vance needs those tax returns to advance his investigation.
3. Investigation of real estate fraud
What we know: New York Attorney General Letitia James has been another persistent source of irritation for Trump.
Since March 2019, James has been conducting a civil investigation into whether the Trump Organization committed real estate fraud.
Once again, the roots of this research go back to Cohen , who, in February of 2018, told Congress that Trump had inflated the value of his real estate assets to guarantee loans and underestimated them to reduce his taxes.
Cohen’s testimony gave James reason to seek information about Trump’s real estate empire.
Like Vance, James has had to fight for this information in court.
Eric Trump, Executive Vice President of the Organization ion Trump and son of the president, has accused her of waging “political revenge.”
Despite this, she complied with a request to testify in his office in October.
What could happen next : James needs more testimonials and information to carry out the investigation.
In office, Trump argued that he was too busy to deal with lawsuits.
Now, you can’t use that excuse.
James can treat Trump with less deference, pressuring him to be questioned under oath, just like his son.
“Most courts would be very lenient with a president accused of things like planning, for example. But this is not the case with a private citizen ”, says Alonso.
Civil investigations like this one can result in financial penalties, if evidence of irregularities is found.
If it is thus, another criminal investigation cannot be ruled out.
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4. The cases of emoluments
What we know: emolumento is an archaic word that is rarely used today except in legal contexts.
The definition is controversial, but is generally understood to mean gain, benefit, or advantage from employment or the performance of public office.
So what does this have to do with it what to do with Trump?
Has he been accused of violating the s rules against “emoluments” during his presidency.
These rules, known as emolument clauses, were written in the country’s fundamental legal text, the Constitution .
A clause requires all federal officials, including the president, to seek the consent of Congress before accepting any benefits
Three separate civil lawsuits alleged that Trump had not sought such consent.
One cited the lodging of foreign officials at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC as a possible violation.
Trump has mocked “this bogus pay clause,” suggesting that other incumbent presidents have made money.
What could happen next: regardless, the salary demands probably will be dismissed or withdrawn, say experts leg ales.
One presented by the Democrats of Congress has already been rejected by the Supreme Court.
“It is not probable that the emoluments are the basis of any criminal action “Says Turley, who is an expert in constitutional law.
” The emolument cases are related to Trump in office, so once he leaves office, the controversy becomes huge. academic measure ”.
5. Sexual misconduct lawsuits
What we know : Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women whose allegations span decades.
Trump has denied all the accusations, dismissing them as “fake news”, political slander and conspiracies.
Many of the accusers presented their pleadings before Trump’s electoral victory in 2016.
Trump promised to sue them all, but so far he has not fact.
Instead, some of the accusers have sued Trump.
Two of those women have filed defamation suits against Trump for calling them liars.
E Jean Carroll, a longtime columnist for Elle magazine, is one of them.
She accused Trump of raping her in a dressing room in a fancy Manhattan department store in the 1990.
Trump denies it and is contesting the defamation lawsuit.
In her lawsuit, Carroll argues that Trump defamed her saying that he could not have raped her because “she is not my type.”
Her lawsuit seeks damages not
Carroll’s trial against Trump seemed fairly straightforward until September, when the US Department of Justice intervened.
The Department took the unusual step of i n attempt to replace Trump with the United States as the defendant in the case.
In the end, a federal judge ruled against the department’s intervention, arguing that “the accusations are not related to official business in the United States.”
What could happen next: The case can now continue, allowing Carroll’s attorneys to gather evidence.
For example, they could continue to try to verify if Trump’s DNA is on a dress that Carroll says she was wearing at the time of the alleged assault.
For that, they would need a DNA sample from Trump.
A similar, but separate defamation lawsuit filed by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the television show from Trump, The Apprentice, can go the same way.
Zervos alleged that Trump had sexually assaulted her during a meeting to discuss job opportunities at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2016.
Trump dismissed the accusation as “false”, accusing Zervos of fabricating it to achieve fame.
Later, Zervos sued him for defamation in 2018, seeking damages of at least $ 3, 10 Dollars.
Trump tried to have the case thrown out during his presidency.
His lawyers suggested that, as president, he should be immune from lawsuits in state courts.
“ That argument is completely evaporated on 20 from January”, Barbara L. McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan, told the BBC.
“Once that happens, we move on to the discovery phase of the case. and there might be some movement there. ”
6. Mary Trump’s lawsuit
What we know : “Fraud was not just a family business, it was a way of life,” reads the first line of Mary Trump’s lawsuit against her uncle Donald.
As an opening statement, it could hardly be more derogatory.
Reflects the animosity of Mary Trump’s newly published memoir, in which she describes his uncle as a “narcissist” who threatens the lives of all Americans.
The family dispute is highly personal and the demand of Mary Trump , presented in September, reflects that acrimony.
In this one she accuses Trump and two of her brothers of deceiving her to take away her inheritance while her They pressured him to give up his interests in the family business.
Mary Trump inherited valuable interests in the family business when Fred Trump Jr., her father and the president’s older brother, died in 1990 at the age of 42 years.
Mary was 16 years at that time.
Trump and his brothers “They promised to look after” the interests of Mary Trump, says the lawsuit.
“They lied,” says the lawsuit. “Instead of protecting Mary’s interests, they designed and carried out a complex plan to divert funds from her interests, hide her scam (fraud) and deceive her about the true value of what she had inherited.”
The request seeks at least $ 160 , 000 Dollars in damages.
What could happen next: the White House said that Mary Trump’s book was full of “falsehoods”, but Trump has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
If requests for documents and testimonies come in, Trump cannot cite his presidential duties as a reason to deny them.
No American citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the law.
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