What will happen if Trump is convicted before November?

The first criminal trial of a current or former US president is underway in Manhattan, renewing questions about what a potential conviction would mean for former President Trump as he campaigns for the White House.

A conviction in the New York case, where Trump faces 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records, would not bar him from the presidential race, but it could still disrupt his 2024 bid and open the possibility that this year’s Republican nominee be a convict. criminal.

“If he is convicted on 34 counts, it will affect even someone like Donald Trump, who seems to be that Teflon candidate,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University and mediator for the U.S. Supreme Court. Appeals to the District of Columbia Circuit.

Jury selection for the historic trial — the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to reach a jury — took place this week in Manhattan, where the court whittled hundreds of New Yorkers down to 12 jurors and six alternates who will consider Trump’s fate. ex-president.

The case concerns the 2016 elections, when Trump won his first term. Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen made a $130,000 payment during the 2016 cycle to porn actress Stormy Daniels, aimed at silencing her allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump about a decade earlier. Trump, who denies the affair, reimbursed Cohen, and his company recorded it as legal expenses. The Manhattan district attorney argues that this was illegal.

Legally, the former president — who won the delegates he needs for the Republican nomination — will still be able to run for federal office even if the jury decides to convict him in the hush money case, experts say.

And politically, as Trump continues to view his legal troubles as politically motivated, the trial and final verdict are unlikely to change the minds of 2024 voters who are already firmly in his camp. Trump argues he did nothing wrong in this and other cases.

“He is the only person in America who could probably be charged in four different cases and see his popularity increase among his base, because the base is already convinced that he is affected, that he is being targeted,” Saltzburg said.

Still, a conviction would deem him a criminal — and that could alienate some key voters, including independents and some law-and-order Republicans.

“If he comes out of trial as a convicted felon … I don’t think that’s going to sit well with independent voters, even though they might not be a huge population,” Saltzburg said. “I think people will hesitate before voting for a convicted felon.”

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that a growing percentage of independent voters consider the hush money case to involve a “serious crime.” Fifty-one percent of all voters in the poll said Trump should not be allowed to serve again if he were convicted in that case, a number that included 16 percent of Republicans.

A poll released earlier this year by Bloomberg and Morning Consult also found that 53% of voters in key swing states would refuse to vote for Trump if he were convicted of a crime, and that number would rise to 55% if he were sentenced to prison. .

“We are at an unprecedented moment in American politics,” said Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett. “Court trials are colliding with the campaign.”

“People who hate Trump think he did this and throw the book at him, ‘no one is above the law,’” Bartlett said. “People who love Trump believe he shouldn’t be charged, he’s being persecuted. You will continue to see this play out, deepen, engage, and enrage on both sides of the aisle. Those in the middle, we’ll see what happens.”

At the same time, the Yahoo News/YouGov poll concluded that fewer voters considered the secret money case to be serious when compared to the other three crimes with which Trump was accused.

Trump was indicted last year on federal criminal charges related to mishandling classified materials after his White House tenure ended, and again for alleged efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. and other defendants were accused of conspiring to overturn the state’s 2020 defeat.

There is also an important complication of a conviction that could embarrass Trump in your home state: He can not being able to vote in 2024 in Florida.

“It would be ironic if he couldn’t vote,” said Tamara Lave, a former public defender and law professor at the University of Miami in the Sunshine State. “But you can imagine how he would turn that into, you know, ‘I can’t vote, so vote for me.’”

With Election Day half a year away, Trump will have to be in court four days a week for the duration of the trial, forcing his campaign to make the most of weekend events, virtual appearances and widespread media coverage of the trial to boost Trump in the race for the White House. President Biden, on the other hand, is free to start the campaign.

The incumbent “absolutely needs to take advantage of what’s going on,” Lave said — but Biden will also have to tread a careful line as his rival screams “witch hunt.”

An acquittal in New York, Saltzburg noted, could cause people to “discount” other Trump cases, giving him a bigger boost in the 2024 race.

It may take some time for the Manhattan jury to make a decision. The trial is expected to last several weeks and there is room for legal complications and delays along the way. It is also a question of how long the jury deliberates – and in the case of a conviction, the judge would have to decide on the sentence.

Democrats hope a long-running trial will take the wind out of Trump’s sails and give Biden the opportunity to bolster campaign support.

Prison time is a possible sentence if the jury decides to convict, although experts suggest it would be an unlikely sentence for the judge in this case. If that happens, it still won’t prevent Trump from running in 2024, but it will further harm his efforts to return to the White House.

“It is certainly true that being convicted or even being in prison does not prevent you from running for president or even being elected,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and an adjunct fellow at the Cato Institute. “However, taking office would be a difficult situation if the president were in prison.”

Experts largely predict the hush money case to end before Election Day, and some say it’s not out of the question for another of Trump’s criminal charges to be brought before a grand jury before November.

The charges Trump faces are also noteworthy because they are “all somehow tied to his behavior as a politician,” noted Will Thomas, a professor of business law at the University of Michigan, with the hush money case dating back to 2016. executed. and the case of classified documents reaching his post-Oval Office time.

“It’s almost hard to step back and realize how unprecedented these circumstances are,” Thomas said. “We have never had a president indicted before, current or former president. Now we have a president who faces not one but four criminal charges, and we have the prospect of him being convicted on perhaps one and possibly two before he actually gets the chance to take office, if he is elected.”