Trump 'almost certainly' would go unpunished for alleged crimes if he wins re-election: legal expert

Donald Trump seems to believe that getting re-elected president will make his cascading legal problems go away -- and one expert thinks he's right.

The twice-impeached, twice-indicted former president remains the Republican presidential frontrunner despite dozens on federal and state charges and another round on the horizon, and former Homeland Security official Paul Rosenzweig wrote a column for The Atlantic saying his nomination would turn the 2024 contest into a referendum on whether Trump would be held legally accountable for his alleged crimes.

"I have handled several criminal appeals in my career," said Rosenzweig, who currently teaches cybersecurity at George Washington University Law School. "None has ever been resolved, in even the simplest of cases, in less than a year. That’s just the way our appellate system works; there is no sense of urgency to the proceedings at all."

Trump's appeal of any federal conviction -- whether in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case or the impending Jan. 6 case -- would almost certainly remain an open matter on Election Day and probably would not be concluded before Inauguration Day, and probably would linger through the first half of 2025, when he would likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the conviction stands.

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"In short, it seems to me that no possibility exists that any of the federal charges against Trump will be final before January 20, 2025 — none at all," Rosenzweig wrote. "And it seems equally certain that one of the very first acts of the Trump-appointed attorney general (whoever that may be) would be for the DOJ to move to dismiss the case or cases against the president at whatever stage they are then pending."

"Put simply, if Trump wins reelection in November 2024, the federal cases against him will likely be terminated, without final resolution, within 24 hours of his inauguration," he added. "That doesn’t mean these proceedings will have been worthless. If Trump has been convicted in either trial, America will have the benefit of a historical record that determines his criminality. But that will be little comfort as we endure another four years of his rule, and as he continues to avoid any semblance of actual accountability."

Prosecutions in New York, where he also faces a fraud lawsuit filed by the attorney general, and Georgia would be similarly imperiled and put the nation on an unprecedented path, because while the Constitution does not prohibit state prosecution of the chief executive, the U.S. Supreme Court has never definitely resolved whether they can -- and he would have tremendous power as president to interfere in those cases.

"The nature of Trump’s retaliation would be limited only by his imagination," Rosenzweig wrote. "What, for example, would happen if he tried to pull federal-law-enforcement funding from those two states? What if he directed the FBI to withdraw from cooperative investigative efforts? What if, in Republican-led Georgia, he pressured the state legislature to pass laws limiting the power of the Atlanta DA or requiring her to dismiss the case? The country should not have to answer these questions."