What Trump’s Indictments Mean for His 2024 Presidential Run

Former President Donald Trump’s latest run for the White House is being complicated by a legal onslaught, the latest blow being an indictment over efforts to undo his 2020 election defeat in Georgia. Earlier he was charged in three separate cases with trying to overturn the overall election result, with mishandling classified documents and with falsifying business records. A jury found him liable for sexually abusing a woman decades ago, and he’s facing other civil lawsuits. In addition, his family business was found guilty of engaging in tax fraud. The slew of cases could bring further distractions and unflattering revelations — not to mention the risk of prison time. Trump is no normal politician, though, and the legal scrutiny could feed his preferred narrative that he’s being unfairly targeted by a “deep state” bureaucracy and the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, his likely opponent in the 2024 general election.

The central allegation in the Aug. 14 indictment of Trump is racketeering — essentially, working with a network of co-defendants in committing a web of crimes to support a common objective. Under the Georgia version of the law, racketeering carries a minimum penalty of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years. Trump and 18 other defendants, including former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, are charged with conspiring to unlawfully change the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia in Trump’s favor. Trump’s lawyers called the indictment “flawed and unconstitutional.”