Former President Trump isn’t just campaigning for the White House. Increasingly, he could be campaigning for his freedom.
Trump this week announced he has been informed he is a target in the Justice Department investigation into his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, a development that could foreshadow additional federal charges against him.
Trump has not been convicted of any crime yet, nor is it certain he will be.
But as he faces a potential third criminal indictment, with an additional state-level probe into his actions ongoing in Georgia, the stakes for Trump to win the 2024 election are ratcheting up, with a victory next year perhaps the best way to insulate himself from conviction or jail time.
“It’s a huge factor,” said Sean Walsh, who served in the White House press office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
“At a minimum, if he wins the presidency again then he can say he was vindicated in the public eye,” Walsh said. “No. 2, legally if he is president of the United States, he could potentially pardon himself …Trump’s best bet at getting out of all his legal issues is becoming president again. That’s his get out of jail free card.”
The lines between Trump’s political fortunes and his legal ones are steadily blurring as the cases pile up.
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New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said on CNN this week that Trump advisers have been “pretty blunt” in their view that he has to win the election to guarantee he does not face jail time.
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If Trump is elected in 2024, experts said he could pressure the Department of Justice (DOJ) to shut down any ongoing investigations into his conduct or fire officials who refuse to go along with his demands, similar to the Saturday Night Massacre under then-President Richard Nixon.
DOJ has a decades-old policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted, meaning Trump would be protected from facing new charges.
And, should he be found guilty prior to the election, a 2024 victory would allow Trump to move to pardon himself, something that is untested in the courts but that experts believe he could practically do.
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Should Trump be convicted in New York or Georgia, state-level crimes would not be subject to a presidential pardon. And felony convictions would have additional consequences, such as preventing Trump from voting.
Experts said a 2024 victory for Trump after state-level convictions would create a complicated scenario where the courts would likely have to get involved. One potential outcome would be that Trump would seek to have the courts overturn his convictions or petition the Justice Department to get involved.
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The DOJ investigation is based in Washington, D.C., which poses another risk for Trump, experts said, something the former president seemed to acknowledge when he shared news that he was a target of the probe.
“Going forward I think there’s almost no doubt he’s going to be indicted in Washington. And because he’s going to be indicted in Washington and the potential for a jury that would sit and judge him in Washington, his prospects for remaining free got a lot darker,” said William Banks, a professor emeritus at the Syracuse University College of Law.
Banks noted that prosecutors have already had success getting convictions in for several individuals who were tried for roles in the violence on Jan. 6 and efforts to overturn the election.
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“The more that Trump’s legal problems are front and center, it reminds independent voters of why they rejected Trump in 2020,” said Alex Conant, who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) 2016 presidential campaign. “If we’re talking about Jan. 6 in the days before the 2024 election, Republicans are going to lose. The fact these court cases are going to be ongoing, it all is a huge distraction from what Republicans actually want the 2024 election to be about.”
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Former President Trump isn’t just campaigning for the White House. Increasingly, he could be campaigning for his freedom. https://t.co/1g1eM7HtmX
— The Hill (@thehill) July 22, 2023
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