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If all goes according to plan, Donald Trump will appear in a Washington, D.C., courtroom in a few hours as part of his post-indictment arraignment. As NBC News’ report on this noted, the former president is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya in the wake of the Republican being charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction, and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.
But the same report added:
A prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, has also said she is considering bringing charges against Trump for trying to reverse his defeat there and could present a case to the grand jury there in the coming weeks.
Yes, Trump has been indicted three times, but there’s no reason to assume this constitutes the end of his legal troubles. Revisiting our earlier coverage, let’s recap.
- The most important indictment is special counsel Jack Smith charging the former president for his alleged post-defeat crimes. This case, as far as I'm concerned, deals with the biggest scandal in American history.
- Smith has also indicted Trump as part of the former president’s classified documents scandal.
- In New York, the Republican has also been indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, as part of its investigation into the former president’s hush-money-to-a-porn-star scandal.
- And in Georgia, Trump is under investigation by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, which is scrutinizing his alleged efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.
This does not include a variety of civil cases pending against the former president, including the sweeping case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. In fact, though this was largely overshadowed by Smith’s charges, James announced within hours of Trump’s latest indictment that her office’s case “is ready for trial.”
Trump is also facing several lawsuits filed by police officers injured during the Jan. 6 attack, and the defamation cases filed by E. Jean Carroll.
I’m not in a position to say with any confidence what, if anything, will happen in these cases. It’s possible that they will be resolved without Trump facing any additional criminal charges, leaving the Republican and his defense attorneys to focus exclusively on the three indictments that we already know about. It’s also worth emphasizing that the former president pleaded not guilty in response to his first two indictments, and it’s a safe bet he’ll make the same plea in response to this third.
That said, as things stand, if Trump is working from the assumption that he won’t face additional charges, he’s likely to be disappointed.
This post revises our related earlier coverage.