Trump still has 4 criminal indictments waiting for him — here's what happens if he wins or loses

• Winning the 2024 election could help Donald Trump avoid his four criminal cases.
• "Setting politics aside, there is a lot at stake legally for Trump," one legal expert said.
• Trump has vowed to fire the special prosecutor who brought two federal cases against him.

Not only is the presidency on the line for Donald Trump in the 2024 election but so are the outcomes of the four criminal indictments against him.

Winning would largely free the former president from dealing with his criminal cases for the foreseeable future. Were he to lose to his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris, he'd likely have to face these cases head-on.

"Setting politics aside, there is a lot at stake legally for Trump" in the November 5 election, Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told Business Insider.

Here's what will happen with Trump's four criminal cases — two federal and two state — if he wins or loses this year's presidency.

The New York hush-money case

Whether Trump wins or loses the election, he has a November 26 Manhattan sentencing date on his calendar.

Trump, the first US president convicted of a crime, faces up to four years in jail for his May conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his $130,000 hush-money payment to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.

There is a chance the sentencing date will be delayed. Trump has promised to fight his indictment and conviction in New York's appellate courts. He will likely argue that the evidence in the case includes acts that took place while serving in his official role as president — evidence that would be barred under July's landmark US Supreme Court presidential immunity decision.

Once he's sentenced, experts say further appeals could keep a jail sentence on hold for years — though a jail sentence is highly unlikely, a quartet of former New York judges previously told BI.

Winning the presidency could push things back even further, as Trump could argue he's too busy running the country to tend to his personal legal issues.

Michael Dorf, a Cornell Law School professor, said it's likely that if Trump won the White House, he would immediately file court papers to delay the sentencing until he is no longer president.

Rahmani, the president and cofounder of West Coast Trial Lawyers, said that he does not believe Trump would be sentenced to jail "regardless of the outcome of the election."

"Trump winning makes it logistically impossible and a certainty that he won't receive any time," Rahmani said.

Trump's federal cases

Trump was indicted on two federal charges, both brought by special counsel Jack Smith, which would be eligible for presidential pardon, though a self-pardon has never been tried.

If reelected president, Trump could ask his attorney general to fire Smith. He could also ask the courts to halt the federal prosecutions as there is long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted while in office or attempt to pardon himself, said Dorf.

Trump said on a conservative radio interview last month that if elected, he would fire Smith "within two seconds."

Justice Department regulations stipulate that a special counsel can only be fired for a good cause, but Trump could have his attorney general rescind that regulation, Dorf said.

Firing Smith "is basically his right as president, though I would expect Smith to resign before then, just as a matter of course," said Michel Paradis, an attorney who teaches national security and constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

"The key thing to watch would be what Jack Smith does between Election Day and January 20 to potentially protect those prosecutions from interference," Paradis said.

"There's not a lot he can do to make them ironclad since at the end of the day, the president does control the Justice Department," Paradis said.

Paradis said that before Trump took the oath of office, Smith could try to stay both proceedings, on the grounds that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to both federal indictments.

Asked for a comment, Steven Cheung, Trump's campaign spokesman, told BI: "The Lyin' Kamala Harris - Crooked Joe Biden Witch Hunts against President Trump have imploded just like their failed campaign, and should all be dismissed in light of the Supreme Court's historic decision on immunity and other vital jurisprudence."

A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal election-interference case

Even if Trump lost, Smith's prosecution of Trump on charges he tried to overturn the 2020 election wouldn't necessarily barrel ahead at full speed.

Citizen Trump could continue to challenge the election-interference case on the grounds of presidential immunity, experts say.

In July, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion that provides presidents with broad protection from being prosecuted for official acts while in office. The opinion also bars the use of official-act evidence in any prosecution of a former president, even on charges not relating to official acts.

In August, Smith won a revised indictment that narrowed the charges against Trump to cover acts he took as a private, office-seeking citizen.

The federal classified documents case

Another federal charge against Trump, alleging he failed to return classified government documents he took from the White House, was dismissed in July by the Trump-appointed US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who said Smith's appointment violated the Constitution.

The dismissal, which argues Congress should have approved Smith's appointment, is now being appealed by Smith in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Smith's appeal revolves around what he calls "the long tradition of special-counsel appointments by Attorneys' General."

The Georgia election-interference case

The election interference case in Georgia against Trump and 18 of his associates remains in legal limbo, thanks to the defendants' efforts to get the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, disqualified from the case.

In May, a Georgia appeals court agreed to consider Trump's bid to get Willis removed from the case.

Attorneys for Trump and his codefendants argued that Willis had a conflict of interest in the case because she improperly benefited from a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the Atlanta lawyer she hired as a special prosecutor.

After an evidentiary hearing earlier this year, a judge ruled that Willis and her office could remain on the case so long as Wade stepped aside, and Wade announced his resignation hours later.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the Georgia indictment.

If Trump wins the presidency, he could immediately file papers with the Georgia court "saying you got to put this on hold for the time that I'm president because it's just not consistent with federal supremacy to have a state prosecuting a sitting president," Dorf, a constitutional law expert, said.

"He doesn't control the prosecutors, so you can't fire them, and he can't pardon himself because these are state crimes, so his only option really in the state cases is suspend them," said Dorf.

If Trump loses the election, the case could move forward, though Trump would likely move to get it dismissed based on the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling.