Trump's Legal Troubles: Which Laws Did He Break?

Former US President Donald Trump has been accused of breaking several laws, including falsifying business records, tax fraud, and unlawfully influencing the 2016 US presidential election. In March 2023, Trump became the first sitting or former US president to be indicted on criminal charges. He was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels as hush money. Trump was convicted on all counts in May 2024, becoming the first US president to be convicted of a felony.

Obstruction of an official proceeding

On August 1, 2023, former US President Donald Trump was indicted on four charges, two of which were for "obstructing an official proceeding" and "conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding". This came as a result of his alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack and attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election results.

Obstructing an official proceeding is a felony under US federal law. It was enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in reaction to the Enron scandal, closing a legal loophole on who could be charged with evidence tampering. The crime is defined as "corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding any official proceeding". The term "official proceeding" includes proceedings before federal judges, Congress, federal government agencies, and regulators of insurance businesses.

In the case of Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that he obstructed Congress' certification of the electoral college results on January 6, 2021. This included creating fake election certificates, pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to disregard President-elect Joe Biden's electors, and pushing the DOJ to falsely claim there were issues with the vote in Georgia or other states.

Trump's indictment on this charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Conspiracy to defraud the United States

The January 6 committee says Trump broke this law by trying to obstruct the certification of the election despite being told by aides that there was no fraud that could have affected the outcome, by angrily beseeching Vice President Mike Pence to delay that certification even though he was told there was no legal basis for him to do so, and by working with others, both inside and outside the government, on a "multi-part plan" to stay in power.

The committee also recommended conservative lawyer John Eastman for prosecution on the same count, noting that a federal judge in California had already concluded in a separate lawsuit that evidence of a criminal conspiracy likely existed.

The committee says other Trump associates engaged in the same conspiracy, though it did not attempt to identify all of them since many refused to cooperate with the panel.

The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accuses Mr. Trump of three conspiracies: one to defraud the United States; a second to obstruct an official government proceeding, the certification of the Electoral College vote; and a third to deprive people of a civil right, the right to have their votes counted.

The indictment portrays an attack on American democracy. Mr. Smith framed his case against Mr. Trump as one that cuts to a core function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. By underscoring this theme, Mr. Smith cast his effort as not just an attempt to hold Mr. Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.

Mr. Smith said the former president's efforts to overturn the election went well beyond his First Amendment right to make claims about voter fraud. The indictment details Mr. Trump's efforts to use the machinery of government — including his own Justice Department — to help him cling to power.

Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy. Mr. Smith puts Mr. Trump at the heart of three overlapping conspiracies. These conspiracies culminated on January 6, 2021, as an attempt to obstruct Congress's role in ratifying the Electoral College outcome.

Mr. Smith argued in the indictment that Mr. Trump knew his claims about a stolen election were false. He cited a litany of episodes in which campaign advisors, White House officials, top Justice Department lawyers, speakers of statehouses, and election administrators all told Mr. Trump his claims about "outcome-determinative fraud" in the election were false. Mr. Trump nonetheless kept repeating them.

Establishing that Mr. Trump knew he was lying could be important to convincing a jury to convict him. A lawyer for Mr. Trump has already signaled that his defense could rest in part on showing that he truly believed he had been cheated out of re-election.

Trump didn't do it alone. The indictment lists six co-conspirators, without naming or indicting them. Based on the descriptions provided of the co-conspirators, they match the profiles of a crew of outside lawyers and advisors that Mr. Trump turned to after his campaign and White House lawyers failed to turn up credible evidence of fraud and had lost dozens of cases to challenge the election results in swing states.

Conspiracy to make a false statement

The January 6 committee has accused former US President Donald Trump of breaking four laws, one of which is conspiracy to make a false statement. This accusation is based on an alleged scheme by Trump and his allies to submit "fake electors" in battleground states won by Joe Biden, as a way to obstruct the certification of the election results and invalidate Biden's victory. These electors signed "patently false" certifications, and the committee has evidence that Trump was a participant in the scheme.

Months before the committee's final report, the Justice Department had already been investigating the activity and issued grand jury subpoenas to the "fake electors" in multiple states. The committee's referral to the Justice Department carries no legal weight, but it does provide a "roadmap to justice". The Justice Department is the sole decider of whether to pursue charges against Trump.

The committee's final report, which is 845 pages long, follows nine hearings in 2022 that laid out evidence collected. The report makes the case that Trump is liable for the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the electoral vote count that formalized Joe Biden's election as president.

The report concludes: "The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him."

Inciting or aiding an insurrection

The House Jan. 6 committee has urged the Justice Department to consider prosecuting former President Donald Trump for inciting or aiding an insurrection. The committee's referral to the Justice Department carries no legal weight, but it did provide a "roadmap to justice". The committee amassed substantial evidence that Trump summoned supporters to Washington on the day Congress was meeting to certify Joe Biden's victory and encouraged them to "fight like hell".

The committee's final report asserts that Trump "lit that fire" of the Capitol insurrection, concluding an 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent insurrection. The report details a multitude of failings by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, but makes an emphatic point that security failures are not the primary cause for the insurrection.

The report also details Trump's inaction as his loyalists were storming the building, noting that he watched the violence unfold on television but did nothing to stop it. In total, 187 minutes elapsed between the time Trump finished his speech at the Ellipse and his first effort to get the rioters to disperse. This inaction was a "dereliction of duty", the report says.

In a series of recommendations, the committee suggests that Congress consider barring Trump from holding future office. The report also notes that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution holds that anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution can be prevented from holding office for engaging in insurrection or rebellion.

Trump has been acquitted of a single impeachment charge that he incited a mob to storm the Capitol. However, legal experts have questioned whether the Justice Department could successfully prosecute Trump for inciting the insurrection. In his address, Trump encouraged the crowd to "fight like hell" but also told them to proceed "peacefully and patriotically".

Incitement is not a crime under the First Amendment unless it meets certain criteria. Firstly, it has to be intended to cause violence, and secondly, it has to be likely to cause violence. In the case of Trump's speech, it is a "jury question" as to whether he incited the insurrection.

Violating election law

In 2023, Donald Trump became the first sitting or former US president to be indicted on criminal charges. The charges included 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels as hush money to buy her silence over a sexual encounter between them. The Manhattan District Attorney accused Trump of falsifying these business records with the intent to commit other crimes, including unlawfully influencing the 2016 US presidential election.

In addition, some legal experts have argued that Trump may have broken US federal law and Georgia state law against election tampering by pressuring Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the state. Trump told Raffensperger, "All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have."

According to election and criminal law experts, Trump may have violated Georgia's state law against "criminal solicitation to commit election fraud," which makes it illegal to intentionally solicit or request that another person engage in election fraud. He may also have violated a separate federal law that makes it illegal to attempt to "deprive or defraud" people of a "fair and impartially conducted election process."

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in California, described Trump's phone call with Raffensperger as a "flagrant federal criminal violation," suggesting that Trump was using threats to push Raffensperger to alter the legitimate vote count.

While Trump's intentions during the phone call are a matter of interpretation, and he may have simply been offering his views on the election, the incident raises serious questions about potential violations of election law.

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