Donald Trump’s election victory was historic in a race that would have been his first in the United States.
A victory for Kamala Harris would have made her the first female president. Instead, Trump will be the first user convicted of a crime to assume the presidency of the United States.
The president-elect was convicted last week of attempting to conceal a cash payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.
He was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in May of last year. He continues to deny the allegations and call the matter a “witch hunt. “
Mr Trump, who will be inaugurated as president on 20 January, was also embroiled in other state and federal criminal cases, as well as some civil cases.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and claimed that the accusation was politically motivated.
With his election win, most cases were either dismissed or put on hold, but what will happen to Mr Trump’s legal battles once he returns to the White House?
“Silencing the money” – state case
This is the case relating to Stormy Daniels, for which Trump was found guilty of covering up his then-lawyer’s $130,000 (£99,000) payment for her silence before the 2016 election, about a sexual encounter she alleges they had a decade earlier.
While he may have faced up to 4 years in prison, Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchán gave the president-elect a non-penalty sentence, also known as absolute freedom.
Under New York state law, an unconditional discharge is a sentence imposed “without imprisonment, fine or probation supervision”.
The sentence is pronounced when a ruling issued on “considers that it would be of no use to impose any conditions on the release of the accused,” according to the law.
Read more: Trump escaped from prison or a fine, as it happened
This means that Trump’s case over the hush money was settled without any sanctions that could interfere with his return to the White House, but it still means that he will be the first president to be sworn in as a convicted felon.
Appearing in court by videoconference, the president-elect claimed that the process against him was a “political witch hunt” and said: “I have been treated very unfairly and thank you very much. “
Electoral Subversion – Federal Case
Donald Trump has also been accused of reversing his defeat in the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
He had pleaded not guilty to criminal charges accusing him of a conspiracy to obstruct the process to collect and certify the results.
He was also accused of “dishonesty, fraud and deception” and spreading “widespread and destabilizing lies about election fraud. “
But in July of last year, the Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, granted former presidents broad immunity from prosecution after the president-elect argued that he simply could not be prosecuted for official moves that occurred during his tenure in the White House.
The ruling ended the election subversion case of special counsel Jack Smith opposed to Trump, and after the Republican’s election victory in November, prosecutors filed a request to have the fees withdrawn.
In January – despite Mr Trump’s attempt to block it – a report from Mr Smith about the charges was released by the Department of Justice, which said the president-elect engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The prosecutor said Trump “inspired his supporters to devote acts of physical violence” the Jan. 6 riots and knowingly spread a false narrative about fraud in the 2020 election.
In response, Mr. Trump and Mr. Smith “upset” and criticized the report’s “false conclusions. “
Election interference – state case
Trump was officially jailed in the Fulton County Jail in Georgia in August 2023, accused of allegedly conspiring to overturn his defeat, particularly in that battleground state in the 2020 election.
The election result in Georgia that year was memorably close, triggering two recounts, but ultimately Mr Biden won by 11,779 votes – or 0.23% of the five million cast.
He qualified through Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. But Trump was not satisfied with the result.
Prosecutors used state racketeering laws, developed to fight organised crime, to charge him and others, including his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Trump pleaded guilty, along with eight of his 14 co-defendants, including former mayor and New York City attorney Rudy Giuliani, and appealed the case.
While this case is still technically ongoing, it is largely on hold.
The case faced several upheavals after the president-elect’s lawyers attempted to disqualify the lead prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, alleging alleged misconduct related to her past appointments with attorney Nathan Wade.
Willis was excluded from prosecution through an appeals court in December. She filed an appeal this month.
Under state law, if a district attorney is disqualified, their office is as well.
The case is then referred to the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, who must find another prosecutor – a process that can take years.
The court will also have to determine whether a state prosecutor can prosecute a sitting president once proceedings resume.
As of this writing, Judge Scott McAffe has also dismissed five of the thirteen charges opposing the president-elect.
Misuse of classifieds – federal case
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s second case against the president-elect, Mr Trump had also faced charges over classified documents he allegedly took from the White House, including deleting CCTV footage of his staff moving boxes at his Florida home.
However, a ruling dismissed the charges against him on July 15.
According to the federal indictment, some documents included details about the United States’ nuclear weapons programs, the vulnerabilities of the country and its allies, and plans for retaliatory military strikes.
Prosecutors had appealed the decision, but an appeals court agreed to uphold the dismissal in November.
Smith then resigned from the Justice Department in January after filing his report in the election interference case.
Civil cases
Trump also has several civil claims totaling more than $500 million (around £388 million), which will be affected by his victory.
These come with a civil fraud case in New York state and lawsuits filed through E Jean Carroll, who sued him for allegedly sexually assaulting her in the 1990s and defaming her when he was president for the first time.
On December 30, a federal appeals court upheld a Manhattan jury’s $5 million award for defamation and sexual abuse.
A second jury, which awarded Ms. Carroll another $83. 3 million in damages for comments Mr. Trump made about her when he was president, was asked in the ruling to accept the first jury’s conclusion that Trump had sexually abused the writer. the verdict is still nice
Trump faces eight ongoing civil lawsuits similar to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, following his allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
No trial date has been set, but with appeals it could take months or longer to determine, NBC, Sky’s US marital network, reports.
Can Trump pardon himself?
With both federal instances dismissed, the president-elect does want to forgive himself.
Sky News US correspondent James Matthews said after Sanchez’s Trump victory in November that such a move is within the president’s power, although self-pardon has never been legally tested.
The issue of a pardon doesn’t apply in state cases, meaning the president-elect can only be pardoned over the hush money conviction by New York Governor Kathy Hocul – a Democrat.
Matthews noted in November however that Trump’s conviction and prosecution in other cases – such as Georgia – were weakened by the Supreme Court ruling in favour of immunity.
“Nor can evidence of official acts be used in evidence to support the prosecution of a crime committed out of office,” the correspondent said.
He then said to “expect Trump’s lawyers to point to evidence used to convict him – phone calls and behaviour while in the role of president – and claim it relates to official acts and, under the Supreme Court ruling, should be ruled inadmissible”.
Should the now-paused Georgia case be resumed, prosecutors would face difficulty bringing charges against him.