Complicated timing: Two of Trump’s criminal trials could be decided by GOP convention

On Jan. 15, the same day the Iowa caucuses kick off the Republican presidential primary, a civil trial is scheduled to begin in New York accusing GOP frontrunner Donald Trump of defamation against a woman accusing him of rape.

The next day, in South Florida, a federal judge will consider whether to admit classified material into a criminal trial that could put him behind bars.

The Republican primary calendar is set to run headfirst into the legal realities facing Trump, who currently tops the polls despite facing criminal charges in New York and Florida, with additional indictments possible in the coming weeks out of Washington, D.C., and Georgia.

Many of the most competitive contests that could determine the Republican nominee will take place before the first criminal trial begins on March 24, including the Super Tuesday races, forcing Republican primary voters to decide whether to elect Trump as their party leader once again without knowing his ultimate legal fate.

“When we take all these cases and how they’ve come about, most Republicans see these cases as political charges masquerading as criminal charges,” Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said. “I think you’re going to have a hard time finding a Republican that doesn’t see it that way.”

But at least two of the criminal cases facing Trump could reach jury trials in the spring, before the Republican National Convention takes place in Wisconsin on July 15 — raising the prospect of a contested convention if Trump is convicted.

“That is really the key date here,” said Norm Eisen, White House ethics czar under former President Barack Obama and co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Trump in 2020.

“The principal decision point is going to come at the convention, where there will be two of these four big criminal cases resolved in jury trials,” Eisen said. “And they’ll have to decide, if Trump has been convicted, whether they want to nominate a convicted felon even if he has won the most votes.”

Trump has been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney for allegedly falsifying business records in order to cover up payments to a porn star with whom he reportedly had an extramarital affair in the months before the 2016 presidential election. The judge overseeing that case has scheduled a trial to begin March 24 and said he intends to stay firm on the date.

An independent special counsel, Jack Smith, has charged Trump with mishandling highly classified documents under the Espionage Act by storing them at his home in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, refusing to return them to federal authorities and conspiring to obstruct justice. The judge in that case has set a trial date for May in Florida.

And any day now, Smith could charge Trump in a separate case alleging he attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election. That case, based out of Washington, D.C., could move quickly — especially if the calendar in the South Florida case slips. “I anticipate he’ll schedule that on a double track, so if the documents case slips, you can get the election interference case in D.C. tried,” Eisen said.

Trump also faces possible felony criminal charges at the state level in Georgia over his attempts to subvert the election results there in 2020. Charges stemming from that investigation could come as soon as next month.

Civil Suits

Trump also faces two civil cases out of New York. The defamation suit, which goes to trial on Jan. 15, is an amended lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, who had previously won her case against the former president after he had denied sexually assaulting her at a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Shortly after that decision came down, Trump verbally attacked her on cable television, leading Carroll to amend her claims.

And in October, Trump and his family organization will confront allegations of “staggering” fraud in another New York trial, accused by the attorney general of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of their properties and his personal net worth over the course of a decade.

The former president has said he is innocent in all cases.

The crowded schedule of legal engagements underscores the various political and logistical challenges that Trump faces as he seeks to return to the White House in 2024.

“The issue is going to be: can the Justice Department get a conviction?” O’Connell said. “And does it happen before the convention? I’m not so sure about that, but I don’t think it’s crazy to say that something could happen before the general election.”

The various charges have also created an awkward entanglement between the political world and the justice system. Trump and his allies have seized on the indictments and investigations on the campaign trail to argue that he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by political opponents, and have repeatedly criticized prosecutors and judges whom he views as a threat.

Republican voters have largely shown a willingness to stand by Trump’s claim that the cases against him are purely political. A Quinnipiac University poll released in June, for example, found that roughly nine in 10 GOP voters said they believe that the allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office are politically motivated.

And while more than a dozen Republicans are challenging Trump for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, he remains the heavy favorite in the primary. Most national and state-level polls show him leading the GOP field by double-digit margins. His main rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has struggled in recent months to gain any ground on Trump.

Still, Trump’s expected trials pose a challenge for a politician who would much rather be on the campaign trail than in the courtroom. Dallas Woodhouse, a longtime Republican operative who has worked in GOP politics in North Carolina and South Carolina for years, said the race is still fluid and that the indictments only exacerbate that dynamic.

“Right now, most Republicans think Trump ought to be the nominee,” he said. “The question is will they still think that come January and February and March? You have these indictments, these trials. And you can’t be in two places at the same time.”