A strange and volatile early stage of the 2024 presidential race has already begun, where investigations in Atlanta and Washington D.C. into former President Donald Trump are set to upstage his campaign rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Welcome to the prosecution primary, where Trump’s legal threats are moving faster than the political calendar.
The biggest action of the next few months won’t take place on the campaign trail, but in the hushed conference rooms of District Attorneys and the Department of Justice, where prosecutors will decide whether to indict the former president. Three separate groups of prosecutors are preparing to make charging determinations within the next few months, ahead of next year’s GOP primaries. Many independent legal experts now think Trump’s indictment looks like a matter of time—including some who were once highly skeptical Trump would ever be charged.
That means law enforcement officials in Washington D.C., Atlanta, and Manhattan are primed to have an outsized, early influence in the race.
If Trump is indicted in the first half of 2023, a criminal trial could start before the end of this year, or in the first half of 2024. The resulting possible scenarios seem outlandish to even consider: Will we see a Trump mug shot this summer? If Trump is released on bond, will he do presidential debates wearing an ankle monitor? If he is charged, and refuses to abandon his campaign, will he finally succeed in splitting the GOP?
...rump has denied any wrongdoing, and calls all the probes into his conduct part of a “witch hunt.”
But any of these probes could soon erupt into the first prosecution of a former president in U.S. history. Or, in a bizarre, legal cataclysm, he could become ensnared in all three, at the same time—in the middle of running for president.
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