NEW YORK — Even by Donald Trump's standards, this past week was a dizzying one.
The first criminal prosecution of a former president began in earnest with opening statements and testimony in a lower Manhattan courtroom. The action quickly spread to involve more than half a dozen cases in four states and the nation's capital.
Twice during the week, lawyers for Trump simultaneously appeared in different courtrooms.
Former President Donald Trump waves to the media Friday as he returns from a break during his trial at Manhattan criminal court in New York.
The collision of so many cases within a five-day span underscores the challenges Trump will face as he campaigns again for the White House while his legal matters intensify. While the presumptive Republican nominee sought to talk about the economy and other issues, court developments across the country repeatedly overshadowed his intended message.
Here's how the week broke down and what's ahead:
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Monday
The week began with a moment for the history books, with prosecutors for the first time presenting a jury with a criminal case against a former American president.
In opening statements, prosecutors told jurors that hush money payments made to an adult film actor were "a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election" while Trump's lawyers argued the case is baseless. Testimony then began with former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker giving the public the most tangible look yet at the allegations.
It also gave the clearest picture yet of Trump's defense and how he is blending his roles as candidate and criminal defendant. Trump started and ended the day appearing before reporters at the courthouse, complaining he is required to be there and commenting on how cold it is in the courtroom or remarks on unrelated national news.
In a separate but nearby courthouse, one of Trump's lawyers struck a deal with New York state lawyers over a $175 million bond that Trump posted to pause a large civil fraud judgment he's appealing in a separate case.
Tuesday
Trump returned to court where prosecutors urged the judge to hold Trump in contempt for social media posts they said violated a gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors and others involved.
The judge did not immediately rule on the request but seemed skeptical of defense arguments that Trump was just responding to others' attacks.
Pecker, a longtime Trump friend, testified the rest of the day and said he pledged to help suppress harmful stories about Trump during the 2016 election.
Wednesday
Trial proceedings were not scheduled for Wednesday, so Trump didn't trek to the Manhattan courthouse.
More court documents were unsealed in Florida in another criminal case in which federal prosecutors charged Trump and two of his employees with mishandling classified documents after he left the White House. Though the case seems unlikely to reach trial this year, the documents show, among other things, the warnings that Trump received from associates to return the sensitive files he later was charged with possessing.
In Arizona, the state's attorney general indicted 18 of Trump's associates for their roles in an effort to overturn Trump's loss in that state to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The Arizona case referred to Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator.
In a similar case in Michigan, a state investigator testified that he considers Trump to be an uncharged co-conspirator in that state's case against fake electors.
Thursday
Trump's hush money case in New York state court resumed Thursday. Prosecutors began the day by arguing before the judge that Trump again violated the gag order with social media posts and comments he made at a campaign stop in the city.
New York state Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan did not yet rule on whether to hold Trump in contempt.
Pecker later resumed testimony. Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump aide who was among the 18 charged in Arizona the prior day, listened in the courtroom.
At the same time in Washington, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed whether Trump can be prosecuted over his efforts to undo his loss to Biden. The justices in their questions seemed skeptical of Trump's claims of absolute immunity from prosecution, but a few seemed to signal they had reservations about the charges, and that could result in a delay in that trial beyond November's election.
In New York federal court, a judge rejected Trump's request for a new trial in a defamation case in which he was ordered to pay $83.3 million to an advice columnist for his social media attacks over her claims that he sexually assaulted her.
In this courtroom sketch, Judge Juan Merchan, left, listens as David Pecker testifies Friday on the witness stand in Manhattan criminal court in New York.
Friday
The hush money trial continued in New York on Friday, with Pecker wrapping up testimony and Trump's lawyers seeking to discredit him.
Two other witnesses, Trump's longtime executive assistant Rhona Graff and Gary Farro, a banker for former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, testified. Epshteyn again was in the courtroom.
This coming week
The New York hush money case is not expected to resume until Tuesday because of a long-scheduled day off Monday. Testimony is expected to continue Thursday and Friday, giving Trump a chance to make campaign stops in Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the judge scheduled a morning hearing on prosecutors' most recent push to punish Trump over the gag order.
Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani speaks Dec. 15 during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Washington.
In the Arizona case, details could emerge about the charges against Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows and former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Sixteen of the 18 people indicted by a grand jury there were charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery for their role in submitting a false slate of electors to Congress. The state attorney general had yet to confirm charges against the two remaining defendants. The indictment makes clear, based on their statements and positions, that they are Giuliani and Meadows, but the charges against them are still redacted.
Where each Trump case stands
Classified documents case
Pictured: Boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Special counsel Jack Smith has been leading two federal probes related to Trump, both of which have resulted in charges against the former president.
The first charges to result from those investigations came in June when Trump was indicted for mishandling top secret documents at his Florida estate. The indictment alleges that Trump repeatedly enlisted aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showed off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map.
A superseding indictment issued in July added charges accusing Trump of asking for surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago estate to be deleted after FBI and Justice Department investigators visited in June 2022 to collect classified documents he took with him after leaving the White House. The new indictment also charges him with illegally holding onto a document he’s alleged to have shown off to visitors in New Jersey.
In all, Trump faces 40 felony charges in the classified documents case. The most serious charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on May 7 canceled the May 20 trial date in the case, postponing it indefinitely. She struck a paragraph from the indictment June 10 but denied a defense request to dismiss some of the charges. The paragraph concerns allegations that Trump, in 2021 and while no longer president, showed a classified map of a foreign country to a representative of his political action committee while discussing a military operation that he said was not going well. Defense lawyers said the paragraph was prejudicial because it was not connected to any crime charged in the indictment
Walt Nauta, a valet for Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Trump’s Florida estate, have also been charged in the case with scheming to conceal surveillance footage from federal investigators and lying about it.
Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira have pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in April to throw out the charges they face. The judge did not immediately rule.
Election interference
Pictured: Supporters of former President Donald Trump protest Jan. 6, 2023, outside of the Supreme Court on the second anniversary of the riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s second case against Trump was unveiled in August when the former president was indicted in Washington on felony charges for working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The four-count indictment includes charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding: the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. It says that Trump repeatedly told supporters and others that he had won the election, despite knowing that was false, and describes how he tried to persuade state officials, then-Vice President Mike Pence and finally Congress to overturn the legitimate results.
After a weekslong campaign of lies about the election results, prosecutors allege, Trump sought to exploit the violence at the Capitol by pointing to it as a reason to further delay the counting of votes that sealed his defeat.
In their charging documents, prosecutors referenced a half-dozen unindicted co-conspirators, including lawyers inside and outside of government who they said had worked with Trump to undo the election results and advanced legally dubious schemes to enlist slates of fake electors in battleground states won by Biden.
The Trump campaign called the charges “fake” and asked why it took two and a half years to bring them. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case had been set for trial on March 4 in federal court in Washington. But that date was canceled amid an appeal by Trump on the legally untested question of whether a former president is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House.
The Supreme Court injected fresh uncertainty into the trial date, saying Wednesday that it would hear arguments in late April. That leaves it unclear whether a trial can be completed before the November election.
Hush-money scheme
Pictured: Former President Donald Trump speaks before entering the courtroom Feb. 15, 2024, at Manhattan criminal court, where he faces state charges stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump became the first former U.S. president in history to face criminal charges when he was indicted in New York in March on state charges stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
Originally set to proceed to trial March 25, Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day delay starting March 15 until April as he sought answers about a last-minute evidence dump that the former president's lawyers said hampered their ability to prepare their defense. The trial kicked off with jury selection April 15. A full jury was seated April 18.
Trump has already pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Each count is punishable by up to four years in prison, though it’s not clear if a judge would impose any prison time if Trump were convicted.
The counts are linked to a series of checks that were written to his lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for his role in paying off porn actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, not long after Melania Trump gave birth to son Barron. Those payments were recorded in various internal company documents as being for a legal retainer that prosecutors say didn’t exist.
Opening statements provided a clear roadmap of how prosecutors will try to make the case that Trump broke the law, and how the defense plans to fight the charges on multiple fronts.
Lawyers presented dueling narratives as jurors got their first glimpse into the prosecution. Still to come are weeks of what's likely to be dramatic and embarrassing testimony about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's personal life as he simultaneously campaigns to return to the White House in November.
Georgia election indictment
Pictured: People watch as the motorcade with former President Donald Trump travels to the Fulton County Jail Aug. 24, 2023, in Atlanta.
Trump is charged alongside 18 other people — including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law by scheming to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss.
The indictment, handed up in August, accuses Trump or his allies of suggesting Georgia’s Republican secretary of state could “find” enough votes for him to win the battleground state; of harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; an, attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of Electoral College electors favorable to Trump.
In the months since, several of the defendants, including lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, have pleaded guilty.
An appeals court on June 5, 2024, halted the case while it reviews the lower court judge's ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case.
The Georgia Court of Appeals' order prevents Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee from moving forward with pretrial motions as he had planned while the appeal is pending. While it was already unlikely that the case would go to trial before the November general election, when Trump is expected to be the Republican nominee for president, this makes that even more certain.
The appeals court docketed the appeals filed by Trump and eight others and said that “if oral argument is requested and granted” it is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 4. The court will then have until mid-March to rule, and the losing side will be able to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Trump and eight other defendants had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, arguing that a romantic relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the state Court of Appeals.
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade formally withdrew March 15, 2024, after a judge ruled he had to leave or Willis couldn't continue to pursue the charges. His resignation allows Willis to remain on the most sprawling of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
Arizona election indictment
Pictured: Former New York Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani speaks Dec. 15, 2023, outside the federal courthouse in Washington. Guiliani, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, was among those indicted April 24, 2024, in an Arizona election interference case.
An Arizona grand jury on April 24, 2024, indicted former President Donald Trump 's chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and 16 others for their efforts to use so-called fake electors to try to overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won Arizona in 2020, including the former state party chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers. They're charged with nine counts each of conspiracy, fraud and forgery. The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the charges.
Trump, who is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator, has argued that he can’t be prosecuted for acts he committed while serving as president. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday will hear arguments on his bid to avoid federal prosecution over his efforts to reverse his loss.
With the indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election. Heading into a likely November rematch with Biden, Trump continues to spread lies about the last election that are echoed by many of his supporters.
Descriptions of other unnamed defendants point to Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations; John Eastman, a lawyer who devised a strategy to try to persuade Congress not to certify the election; and Christina Bobb, a lawyer who worked with Giuliani. Eastman and Bobb did not respond to text messages seeking comment, nor did a lawyer who is representing Roman in a case in Georgia.
The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump as the winner.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to de-certify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending them to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked legal standing, waited too long to bring their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their extraordinary claims.”
Days after that lawsuit was dismissed, the 11 Republicans participated in the certificate signing.
The Arizona charges come after a string of indictments against fake electors in other states.
The Republicans facing charges are Kelli Ward, the state GOP’s chair from 2019 until early 2023; state Sen. Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now a candidate in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District; Greg Safsten, a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee in 2020; Samuel Moorhead, a Republican precinct committee member in Gila County; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 was the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, past president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician who is married to Kelli Ward.
Civil cases
Pictured: Former U.S. President Donald Trump, with lawyers Christopher Kise and Alina Habba, attends the closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on Jan. 11, 2024, in the Manhattan borough of New York.
Beyond the criminal cases, Trump has also been the subject of a civil proceeding in New York City. The state's attorney general, Letitia James, argued that Trump and his companies engaged in a yearslong scheme to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated his wealth.
A judge has ordered Trump and his companies to pay $355 million as a penalty in the case. Trump won’t have to pay out the money immediately as an appeals process plays out, but the verdict still is a stunning setback for the former president.
New York state lawyers and an attorney for Trump settled their differences in April over a $175 million bond that Trump posted to block a large civil fraud judgment while he pursues appeals.
The agreement cut short a potential court hearing in Manhattan that was to feature witnesses.
The bond stops the state from potentially seizing Trump’s assets to satisfy the more than $454 million that he owes after losing a court case brought by the Democratic attorney general. She had alleged that Trump, along with his company and key executives, defrauded bankers and insurers by lying about his wealth.
If he’s ultimately forced to pay, the magnitude of the penalty, on top of earlier judgments, could dramatically diminish his financial resources. And it undermines the image of a successful businessman that he’s carefully tailored to power his unlikely rise from a reality television star to a onetime — and perhaps future — president.
That ruling comes on top of the $83.3 million Trump was ordered to pay to E. Jean Carroll in January for his continued social media attacks against the longtime advice columnist over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store. He was already the subject of a $5 million sexual assault and defamation verdict last year from another jury in the case.
