A primer on Trump’s criminal trials

Editor’s note (July 15th 2024): This article has been updated to take in the latest developments.

RUNNING FOR the American presidency is a full-time job. “There was essentially no day or night” from the first presidential debate in September 1976 to election day, griped James Fallows, now a journalist, who worked on Jimmy Carter’s campaign. Donald Trump, now sure of the Republican Party’s nomination for this year’s election, has had to combine that gruelling endeavour with his role as a criminal defendant. Eighty-eight felony charges were brought in all. He was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records on May 30th. But it is looking increasingly unlikely that the other trials, in which he faces graver charges, will return verdicts before election day. So far, Mr Trump, who denies all the pending charges, has reconciled the roles of defendant and candidate by making his campaign largely about the cases against him. He rallies Republican support with his claims that he is the victim of a political witch-hunt. Whether most American voters will agree is uncertain—as is the effect of the Supreme Court’s ruling, on July 1st, that he is entitled to “presumptive immunity” for “official acts”. These are the prosecutions that await the former president.