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Cardozo Law Review

Abstract

Donald Trump’s election to President of the United States for the second time in November 2024 marked the beginning of the end of a sustained effort to hold him accountable in court for conduct that many Americans viewed as criminal.[1] Trump received not only the majority of Electoral College votes but a decisive plurality of the popular vote as well.[2] At the time of the election, he had already been convicted of thirty-four felonies surrounding a complex fraud to hide the use of campaign funds for hush money to an adult film actor.[3] Prior to this conviction, the decisions of a federal special prosecutor in Washington, D.C. and a Georgia district attorney to indict Trump on charges related to the 2020 presidential election had generated a heated public debate.[4] In the wake of Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith moved to withdraw these charges and indicated his intention to step down in the near future.[5] At one end of the spectrum of opinion are those who see nothing questionable or unusual in such proceedings, only the normal workings of the legal process. Trump was treated as any other potential accused might be on the same facts; no one is above the law, and Trump’s status as a highly controversial President and candidate for 2024 is and should be irrelevant to the workings of criminal justice.[6] At the other extreme, militant supporters of Trump view these upcoming trials as illegitimately political[7]—a way for Democrats to obtain partisan political advantage during an election year, possibly eliminating the Republican candidate from competition. In between, there is a range of views, either in favor of or against these trials, that take into account considerations such as the impact of the trials and the eventual outcome—whether of acquittal or of conviction—on the political fabric of American society and fundamental values such as freedom of speech and probity in public life.

Disciplines

Law | Law and Politics | President/Executive Department

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