Everything you need to know about Trump’s four criminal trials

This is "In Conversation" from Apple News. I'm Brian Stelter, filling in for Shumita Basu. Today, everything you need to know about Trump's criminal trials.

Donald Trump is the first U.S. president to face criminal charges: 91 counts in four cases. He has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all counts.

This is just a totally unprecedented moment in American history.

That's "NPR's" Scott Detrow.

How will voters absorb that? How much will it matter? What happens if you're having a criminal trial, you know, nine to five, and then in the evening trying to campaign for president at the same time? There are just so many questions here.

Scott is hosting a new podcast for "NPR" called "Trump's Trials." My other guest this week is Karen Tumulty, political columnist at "The Washington Post."

There is just so much of it that people understandably are going to have trouble sort of sorting out which here is the most significant. It's just so much going on at one time.

Two of the cases are state cases. The other two are federal. Let's start with the one coming up first, the so-called "hush money" case in New York.

This first case looks back at the 2016 election…

A story broke about the President of the United States' alleged involvement with a payment to an adult film actress.

…when Trump allegedly paid his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to silence a story.

Michael Cohen had arranged $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to prevent her from speaking about the alleged sexual encounter.

Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is an adult film star. She alleges the sexual encounter with Trump took place in 2006. Clifford told her story to "60 Minutes Australia" back in 2018.

Why did you have sex with him?

I have no idea.

Even after all this time?

Yeah, I have no idea. Either I was in the right place at the right time, or I was [CHUCKLING] in the wrong place at the wrong time, and my opinion of that changes about every 20 minutes.

Along with Clifford, Trump has also been accused of paying off a former "Playboy" model who alleged she had an affair with him, as well as a doorman at Trump Tower, who claimed to have a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock. Trump has denied all of this. Now, compensating someone in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement is not necessarily illegal. Trump is in hot water for the accounting of these payments. He's accused of disguising them as legal expenses

Less than two weeks before the presidential election, Michael Cohen wired $130,000 to Stormy Daniels' lawyer.

Prosecutors say covering up the alleged affairs amounts to an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.

That payment was to hide damaging information from the voting public. The participant scheme was illegal. The scheme violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.

And according to Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, Trump was directly responsible for the payments.

Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a home equity line of credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.

That's Cohen testifying to Congress a few years ago.

I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1st of 2017, when he was President of the United States, pursuant to the cover-up, to reimburse me.

Michael Cohen was also charged. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion, among other charges, in 2018 and served a 3-year sentence, mostly in home confinement. Now, Trump's trial is set to begin March 25th. I asked Karen what we can expect his defense team to say.

So what they are going to say is that another citizen in similar circumstances would not face as many charges as he is for the exact same act.

Mm.

And I think that, you know, a lot of legal experts say that the D.A. in Manhattan is kind of reaching on this. At one point, somebody was referring it, to it as the runt of the litter.

And I think a lot of voters may think, you know, this among the many, many issues being raised is the one that matters the least.

Scott, what do you think?

I, I think the allegations themselves are pretty straightforward. And there seems to be a lot of evidence for them. But what Karen raised though is, is this something that would typically be prosecuted as a felony in a criminal courtroom? I do think it's fair to say the answer is often no, but Alvin Bragg made a pretty forceful argument as to why he was moving forward with this case. Like, no, no, you can't just ignore

Prosecutors recently asked the judge overseeing this case for a gag order, uh, to prohibit Trump from attacking witnesses or exposing juror identities once the jury is seated. Prosecutors in other Trump cases have also asked for and been granted similar orders. Karen, this speaks to the role of threats and intimidation that we've seen time and time again. People who, uh, are up against Trump, who are critical, who are challenging him in court, they face real dangers.

You're right, we've seen this over and over and over again. I mean, people who literally fear for their lives. And so, Trump, he has been so unrestrained in so many other settings that you've got to wonder whether people are going to be willing to do their civic duty, uh, sitting on these juries, just as a lot of people are going to be reluctant to be election workers this year. It's…

Mm-hmm.

…it's just such a different environment than we have ever seen. And it's the power of Trump as a public figure, but it's also the power of social media and what it's capable of unleashing.

Mm. Just to play out this courtroom timing a little bit. The trial, if it starts on March 25th, it'll likely take about six weeks. That puts us into May. Trump's…

Mm-hmm.

…already the presumptive nominee. We talked about this on the show last week. I'm curious what you've heard from voters or, or what experts say about the electability of an indicted Trump. So let's say it's May, Scott, and he has been found guilty in the New York hush money case. How much does the timing matter for this campaign?

I think the timing matters a lot, and I do think that, you know, Trump's legal team's overarching goal has been to delay these cases, especially the federal cases. But I think we have seen a split screen here. We have seen these charges against him help Trump in the Republican primary. Uh, Ron DeSantis talked about this a lot, saying that he thought it was much more of an open race, and then the charges started to come against Trump, and Republican voters rallied around Trump, thinking that

And… and… and yet though, Scott, what, what if there's an acquittal? And especially…

Yeah.

…for instance, as we are talking about potentially the New York case may be the weakest. And if…

Yeah.

…in the first case that we see coming down the line, Trump is acquitted, that, I think, in the public's mind has the potential to, you know, taint the legitimacy of the outcome of the other trials.

I agree. I agree. And, and it just falls into the narrative of Donald Trump, the escape artist, right? Impeached. Acquitted. Impeached. Acquitted. Right? There's a pattern here throughout his public career where he just manages to escape at the last possible moment. I think that plays into that, and I think he's taking a victory lap on,

on an acquittal [CHUCKLING] the entire rest of the election.

Trump faces another set of state-level criminal charges in Georgia.

The August indictment charged 19 people for their roles in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

The GOP presidential front-runner is charged with multiple felonies, including violation of the Georgia RICO Act and solicitation of violation of oath by public officer.

Arrest warrants have been issued for former President Donald Trump.

Indeed, a historic moment here in the state of Georgia as we talk about a former president.

This is a huge case. Trump and 18 others are charged under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a law known as RICO, typically used against organized crime rings like the mafia. Prosecutors say Trump and his allies acted together to make false claims of election fraud, create a fake slate of pro-Trump electors and conspire to steal voter data and tamper with voting equipment. And here again, we've heard some of the evidence prosecutors

So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state, and flipping the state is a great testament to our country.

Four of Trump's co-defendants have taken plea deals and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution.

Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall…

…pleaded guilty to five counts…

He was accused of tampering with Georgia's voting machines following the 2020 election.

Trump's former campaign attorney, Kenneth Chesebro…

…pleaded guilty to a single felony count related to his role organizing slates of pro-Trump electors in states Joe Biden won.

Donald Trump's former attorney, Sidney Powell, just pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors over efforts to overturn Trump's election loss in Georgia.

Jenna Ellis reached a deal with prosecutors pleading guilty…

Prosecutors say Ellis intentionally aided and abetted two other lawyers as they lied to Georgia state senators about voting by felons, children and dead people.

Prosecutors are seeking to start Trump's trial in August. But it has come to a standstill after one of Trump's co-defendants accused two of the lead prosecutors of being in a, quote, "improper, clandestine" relationship. Now, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who's leading the case, is facing potential disqualification for dating special prosecutor Nathan Wade due to the appearance

Well, it is definitely a sideshow for [CHUCKLING] any of us who have been watching this play out in the superior courtroom in Fulton County. How did we get here was with a massive case of very bad [CHUCKLING] judgment on the part of the, the D.A., Fani Willis, of, you know, having a romantic relationship with her chief prosecutor.

Who she hired.

Who she hired. Now we're down to arguing, oh, did the relationship start before or did it start after? Was there a financial incentive for her to hire him? And I've got to tell you, it's turning into something where you can watch the, the judge's face in that courtroom and you can see that he's, like, sitting there wishing he'd gone to med school.

And it's not illegal for them to be dating. It's not illegal for her to be his supervisor. It's just, as you said, poor judgment and an opening for Trump.

And also, now they have both testified that this relationship began after her hiring of him, and if there is evidence that either she or the prosecutor did not tell the truth on the stand, then you've got an, a whole 'nother set of potential reasons that this case could get thrown out. Now, the case itself wouldn't disappear, but they would have to find somebody else to prosecute it.

Huh. And this sideshow about Fani Willis, it's been broadcast live all across cable news because there are cameras in the courtroom in Georgia. We're seeing everything. We're seeing everything in Georgia.

We're seeing everything. We're seeing Fani Willis dramatically taking the witness stand and the hearing about her personal relationship at the last minute. Cable news channels are [CHUCKLING] showing every single moment of it, all of the personal details. I mean, it is certainly a sideshow to the main trial. And you had Willis repeatedly saying, I am not on trial here. I'm not the defendant here.

You're confused. You think I'm on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I'm not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.

But I do think it's important to really spell out why there are ethical questions here. This is an outside lawyer, brought in, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the work of leading the prosecution against Donald Trump. So I do think if you remove the party from it, if you move Donald Trump from the equation, a lot of people would say, wait a second, a personal relationship with somebody being steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in, in taxpayer money,

It has become all about Fani Willis and her personal relationships for several months now, and not about, okay, when is there going to be a trial of this RICO case of Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants trying to overturn the presidential election. And remember, it's a state-level proceeding, so Trump couldn't use his presidential power if he goes into office again to get out of it.

So is it true that as of today, we don't know if or when this trial will actually happen?

That's right. Huge question mark.

Let's move now to trial number three, another election interference case, this one at the federal level, for Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his role in the January 6 insurrection.

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

More than a thousand people have been charged for participating in the January 6 attack, and more than half have pleaded guilty. Congress quickly impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection, though he was acquitted in the Senate. A bipartisan Congressional committee later investigated the attack. And here's the Republican vice chair of that committee, Liz Cheney.

The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January 6th was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of this would have happened without him.

The committee unanimously referred Trump and the lawyer John Eastman to the Department of Justice for prosecution. And in August last year, Special Counsel Jack Smith announced charges against the former president.

Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia and it sets forth the crimes charged…

Karen says this case is the one that carries the biggest political consequences for Trump in November.

For this to have happened, just absolutely shakes the foundations of our electoral system, and I think that voters are going to be looking at this not only as a question of whether one candidate is fit for public office again, but really, as an assurance that nothing like this could ever happen again, that there are, if it is proven, consequences for these actions.

Mm. Absolutely. There's no off ramp to the situation that doesn't involve confronting really key existential questions about our democracy and, and our politics and the rule of law. But I think if there's a world where Donald Trump wins the election and these cases have not gone to trial yet, and he just outright dismisses them when he takes office, what does that say about the rule of law in this country?

And it's also, you know, the number of other people who have been swept into this. The people who signed up to be fake electors.

Mm-hmm.

The people who intimidated ordinary election poll workers, the vast network of people that have gotten pulled into this. I think that voters will be looking at these trials, as I said earlier, as some kind of insurance policy that this cannot happen again.

And here again, the trial has been delayed as aspects of the case are appealed. Specifically, Trump has claimed that as president, he has immunity from criminal prosecution for actions he took while in office. He argued this, unsuccessfully, to a panel of judges earlier this year.

There was this extraordinary hearing where, you know, one of the judges asked, if the president ordered SEAL Team 6 to take out a political opponent, are you arguing that the president would be immune? And his team basically said, yes. So then you got this very strong ruling from the judges, two Democrats and a Republican, unanimous ruling, saying, absolutely not. The entire premise of this country is that nobody is above the law, including the president of the United States.

Trump is now appealing that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has scheduled arguments to start in late April.

So as of right now, we're in that timeline that we know so well of other big cases that were maybe waiting until [CHUCKLING] June at the latest for a Supreme Court ruling. And I think that yet again blows up the idea of a trial this year.

I asked Scott about what we might expect to hear Trump's defense team argue if or when this case goes to trial.

That's a good legal question because I don't think that Donald Trump has denied any aspect of this, right? He certainly doesn't deny trying to overturn the presidential election. His legal team denies that what he said at the Stop the Steal rally has a direct tie to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. They've argued in filings, just as, you know, they've argued in public, that he was just giving a speech, he was not directly telling people to go and attack the U.S. Capitol. We all saw it that day.

…with other people charged with, uh, with January 6th cases. Is, is the question, did Donald Trump try and overturn the presidential election? I think most people who live in America, like, have a, have a pretty clear view on that. It's just that a good chunk of Americans think he was right in doing so in this current partisan moment.

Hmm.

Which, I should just say out loud to be clear: He lost the presidential election. I'm not giving any [CHUCKLING] credence to that point of view.

But this is the environment we're in, where there's, there's not a shared reality. There's not a shared understanding of what happened in 2020. Given that the facts are really not in dispute, then, Karen, does that make these trials more important or, or less [CHUCKLING] important, you know? Uh, if people feel like they already know, if they've already reached their own conclusions, how much does it matter if there are trials?

I think that hearing these arguments go on among partisans, among politicians, is one thing. But when you see a jury of your peers…

Average Americans, yeah.

…the president's peers come down with a verdict, I think it is very, very different. And w… we are seeing in the polling, too, that, that people say, well, if there is a, a verdict, if there is a conviction, you know, I'm, I might not want to vote for Trump. I am, I've got to tell you, skeptical, though, of these polls at this early stage because what we have seen among Trump supporters is quite a capacity to rationalize

Finally, Trump's fourth trial is another federal case, this one looking at how he handled classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House. The National Archives says it spent 15 months after Trump left office trying to work with Trump's team to retrieve the documents. Eventually, the FBI was sent to Mar-a-Lago, where agents seized about a hundred documents with classified markings, some including information related to nuclear weapons and national security.

[INDISCERNIBLE]

These are the papers.

Oh, my God.

This was done by the military, given to me. Uh, I think we can probably, right?

I don't know. We'll, we'll have to see. Yeah, we'll have to try to figure out a, a…

Declassify it.

Yeah.

See, as president, I could have declassified it.

[LAUGHING] Yeah.

Now I can't, you know? But this is classified.

[LAUGHING] Yeah, now, yeah, we have a problem.

Isn't that interesting?

A federal grand jury's June 2023 indictment led to 40 felony charges for allegedly hiding records from investigators and showing some of them off.

I've got to say, on the legal merits, this might be the most straightforward case of all.

Oh, yeah. Agree.

He had documents. We've seen pictures of them in the shower at Mar-a-Lago. He was told he shouldn't have them. And there is a lot of evidence there, then, that he and his team resisted a legitimate request by the federal government to get these documents back.

Hmm.

And I think that's the underappreciated part of this case, the resistance to the Archives and then, uh, law enforcement trying to get these documents back because you are going to hear so much whataboutism.

President Biden.

Exactly.

President Biden has documents, right?

Oh, Vi… and Vice President Pence…

Right.

…and, uh, [CHUCKLING] yes.

Right. But both Biden and Pence turned over the documents and said, well, here you go. I shouldn't have these. You know, the question of why they had them to begin with, I think was explored at length. But, but they turned them over. Part of the indictment against Trump is that they were conspiring to move the documents to keep them out of sight.

So we've previewed all [CHUCKLING] four of the trials, all of the criminal trials. Trump is also facing civil actions. But we should establish he can still become president again, even if convicted. That might be one of the most important facts here, Scott.

Yeah, despite the fact that there are incredible limitations on, on convicted felons voting, Trump could become president again if he's convicted of these crimes. And if one or both of these federal cases is paused until after the election, and he's elected president, he would have the power to pardon himself or pressure the Department of Justice

Trump's message, basically his entire campaign message, is that these cases are a witch hunt, that he's being persecuted, uh, and that because it's happening to him, it could happen to you. It could happen to voters. What is the evidence, Karen, that this is not a witch hunt?

I mean, he will be tried in front of his peers. I mean, it is our criminal justice system. And, and so much of this was done pretty much out in the open. We all saw much of it with our, our own eyes. But the Trump campaign, as you were saying, has made the courtroom part of a campaign trail. They are selling his mugshot as a fundraiser.

Hmm.

…and also on the case where Donald Trump was not only holding classified material that he shouldn't have had, but the serious charge here, what differentiates it from the fact that other politicians, including the current president, Joe Biden, also had classified material they shouldn't have, is that Trump is facing an obstruction of justice charge in addition to that. You know, once he knew he had documents that the feds didn't think he should have, he allegedly tried to hide that from them.

Mm. Let me layer on one more part of this story here. Trump has also been ordered to pay more than $350 million, or if you count interest, $450-plus million, for fraud in New York, and another $80 million-plus for defaming E. Jean Carroll. So are these civil penalties at all related to the criminal story here? You know, uh, is this all of a piece, Karen?

I think that they are a sort of a separate piece. And one thing that I think I will be [CHUCKLING] watching very carefully is by what means, if he does pay them, does he pay them? I mean, does, does this end up falling on the backs of, of ordinary campaign contributors? People who, you know, are, are writing their checks to Trump or his super PAC or even potentially the Republican National Committee out of their hard-earned money for $25 here, or $50 there.

Yeah, the clock is ticking on this. Uh, he does, uh, owe this money, and Scott, the indications, I think we've heard are that the court will force him to pay in some way, whether it's through…

Right.

…uh, dollars or assets, seizing property, et cetera.

Right. And, uh, going back decades, there's always been public conversation about, how much money is Donald Trump worth? That was obviously the core part of the civil trial that led to this enormous fine. But I think even if you take the conservative estimate, so much of his money is tied up in real estate. Finding this kind of cash is a huge problem, and there are a lot of open questions about where he finds the resources to post these enormous payments.

Mm. Do you ever think that there's a big chunk of voters, uh, a big chunk of the public that's in denial about what's about to happen? You all have just laid out this incredible timeline. One trial likely to start later this month. Other trials looming. I… I don't know. I… [LAUGHS] I think maybe I've been in denial until I've had this conversation with you two.

Um. To put, like, a more of an existentialist twist on this, I, I think there's a lot of denial of what's going to happen and the consequence of it. And I think there's also this big question of, in this partisan my team versus your team, choose your own reality world, how much any of this matters, uh, in November, which is not

Mm.

One thing is for sure. There will be an election day. It's Tuesday, November 5th. We don't know what's going to happen [CHUCKLING] between now and then, but we know we're going to have an election in November. Oh, wow.

Karen, Scott, thank you both so much.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Scott Detrow is the host of "NPR's" "Trump's Trials" podcast. Karen Tumulty is a political columnist for "The Washington Post." We'll link to their work in our show notes page.