A primer on Trump’s criminal trials

Editor’s note (April 22nd 2024): This article has been updated to take in the latest developments.

RUNNING FOR the American presidency is a full-time job. “There was essentially no day or night” from the first presidential debate in September 1976 to election day, griped James Fallows, now a journalist, who worked on Jimmy Carter’s campaign. Donald Trump, now sure of the Republican Party’s nomination for this year’s election, will have to combine that gruelling endeavour with his role as a defendant in four criminal trials. In all he faces 88 felony charges, from falsifying business records to conspiring to defraud the country. Most of his trials are scheduled to begin well before election day in November. So far, Mr Trump, who denies all the charges, has reconciled the roles of defendant and candidate by making his campaign largely about the cases against him. He rallies Republican support with his claims that he is the victim of a political witch-hunt. Whether most American voters will agree should Mr Trump face off against President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is uncertain. The revelations that emerge in court may well shape the race. These are the prosecutions that await the former president.