Three legal woes that may take Donald Trump down

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Trying to overturn the 2020 election. Taking classified documents on nuclear weapons out of the White House. Business fraud.

These are the three major accusations Donald Trump faces. So far, they have generated four criminal investigations, a congressional probe and a government civil lawsuit – unprecedented legal jeopardy for a former U.S. president.

Now, the clock is ticking. The legislative committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress is expected to issue a final report before the end of the year, when Mr. Trump’s Republican Party may take control of the House.

Prosecutors and attorneys-general, meanwhile, must soon decide whether to lay criminal charges if they want to avoid their cases running up against the 2024 election, in which Mr. Trump is mulling a comeback bid.

In the coming weeks, the ex-president – who has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing – could see his legal woes die down, or become the first former president ever indicted, setting up years of litigation that may go to the Supreme Court.

“We’ve never had anything like this. The business interests, the classified documents, the insurrection. We’ve never had a president personally investigated criminally,” said Jennifer Roberts, a former federal prosecutor. “We are completely in uncharted waters.”

The insurrection

In a series of made-for-television hearings this past summer, the House Jan. 6 committee presented evidence that Mr. Trump put pressure on state officials, the U.S. Department of Justice and his vice-president, Mike Pence, to reverse Mr. Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden.

When none of these schemes worked, the committee heard, Mr. Trump exhorted his followers to descend on the Capitol, tried to join them before he was restrained by his bodyguards, then refused to call the rioters off after they breached the building. The committee is planning one final hearing, likely to focus on connections between Mr. Trump, his circle and far-right groups accused of planning the Capitol attack.

The panel does not have the power to lay charges, but it could recommend an indictment to the Justice Department in its final report.

So far, Attorney-General Merrick Garland’s thinking has been a black box. Until this past summer, there was no indication whether he was even investigating Mr. Trump in relation to the Capitol riot. Some witnesses, however, have anonymously told U.S. media in the past two months that investigators have questioned them about the then-president’s role in a failed plan to replace Democratic members of the electoral college with electors who would instead vote for Mr. Trump.

In Georgia, meanwhile, a state-level criminal investigation is in full swing.

Fani Willis, district attorney for the county that includes Atlanta, and a grand jury have been gathering evidence since May on Mr. Trump’s efforts to cajole Georgia officials into changing the election result. These include the telephone call in which Mr. Trump asked Georgia’s top elections official to “find” enough votes for Mr. Trump to overcome Mr. Biden’s lead.

The grand jury has subpoenaed key figures in Mr. Trump’s orbit, including his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.

The classified documents

Far clearer than Justice’s investigation into Jan. 6 is the department’s probe of Mr. Trump’s removing classified documents from the White House.

Mr. Trump twice voluntarily returned some of the papers, the government said in court filings, but continued to stash others at Mar-a-Lago. Using a search warrant last month, the FBI seized further boxes of documents from the Florida estate and club. In total, Mr. Trump is accused of absconding with 325 classified documents, including 60 marked “top secret,” the highest level of classification.

The papers include some on “special access programs,” national security operations so sensitive that only a handful of government officials ever know about them. At least one document dealt with a foreign power’s nuclear abilities, according to The Washington Post. The FBI investigation is focused on whether Mr. Trump breached national security.

Mr. Trump is currently in a legal battle with the federal government as he tries to stop investigators from looking at the documents. He is claiming executive privilege over the papers, and also says that he declassified them in his mind.

“If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying ‘it’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it,” Mr. Trump told Fox News.

The fraud

New York officials have spent several years investigating Mr. Trump’s business practices. Last week, the state’s Attorney-General, Letitia James, announced a civil lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his company, The Trump Organization, and three of his children – Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.

Ms. James is accusing the Trumps of repeatedly defrauding banks, insurance companies and the government by lying about the value of their assets – in some cases inflating them by billions of dollars to get cheaper loans and in others lowballing them to cut their tax bills.

The suit could theoretically tank Mr. Trump’s companies: It calls for him and several family members to be barred for life from ever running a business in New York. He could, however, opt to settle.

Ms. James has also forwarded her allegations to New York prosecutors to consider laying criminal charges. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg opted not to charge Mr. Trump earlier this year, but said after Ms. James’s suit that his investigation is still “active.”

If Mr. Trump were charged in any of the four open investigations, it would mark a milestone in U.S. law. No previous president has ever been criminally indicted.

There is no constitutional prohibition on charging a former president, but Mr. Trump would almost certainly litigate it in a bid to have the case heard by the solidly conservative Supreme Court. He would also be sure to litigate other key matters, including his broad claims of executive privilege.

Whatever the decision, the people investigating him are likely to make it swiftly.

“If you get too close to 2024, you can’t indict. And you run the risk of the White House changing hands and the whole thing being quashed,” said Ms. Roberts, who now teaches law at Columbia University. “You would need to charge by spring of 2023 at the latest. They are coming up on a death sentence for their case if they want to get it through the system.”