(NewsSpace.com) – Over the past four months, former President Donald Trump has faced some serious legal troubles. He’s been indicted four times and faces a total of 91 charges related to various investigations, with most of the alleged crimes occurring two years ago, or longer. With the 2024 election coming up, the question on many people’s minds seems to be: why now?
A Number of Factors at Play
There were a number of factors at play when it came to charging Trump. For example, he was in office while many of the alleged crimes — the January 6 riots, the hush-money payments, and his scheme to overturn the 2020 election — took place. Sitting presidents are immune from indictment, because such action, according to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), “would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
This finding effectively tabled those three investigations. However, former presidents are not immune from the crimes they may have perpetrated during that time. So, in order to indict Trump, prosecutors had to wait until he left office.
Secondly, investigations involving the seriousness of the charges brought against Trump require lots of time. There are many moving pieces to the probes, and authorities must gather all of the evidence to tie a suspect — in this case, Trump — to an alleged crime. Otherwise, it could all fall apart in court and would be a waste of time.
Further, if law enforcement agents don’t do their due diligence and the case falls apart, resulting in a “not guilty” verdict, the suspect cannot be tried again, even if they find solid evidence after the fact. Then, there’s the issue of the case undermining the public’s faith in the country’s justice system.
The Charges Trump Faces
All of the 91 charges Trump faces are felonies. Two of the four cases are state — the ones related to hush-money payments and the scheme to overturn the Georgia election results — while the other two are federal. If he’s convicted of all the counts against him, he could be sentenced to a maximum of nearly 713 years in prison.
So far, Trump has pleaded not guilty to 78 of the charges and is expected to do the same with the 13 remaining charges he has yet to appear in court for. That’s expected to happen on August 25.
As for the former president, he’s adamant that the law enforcement agencies have been “weaponized” against him in a scheme designed to keep him from winning the 2024 election.
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