Trump's election victory means 'his criminal problems have gone away,' former federal prosecutor says

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Trump's attorney Michael Cohen sent Daniels $130,000 in hush money, which Trump reimbursed through payments from his own company.
57% : Come Inauguration Day, Trump will essentially inherit the powers of the Justice Department, which is headed by the attorney general, who reports directly to the president.
54% : "What precedent does this establish for Trump himself as he exercises power in his second term?"
47% : But Trump also benefited from the strategy of his lawyers, who brought his cases to a standstill, as well as having federal judge Aileen Cannon -- who Trump appointed -- overseeing court proceedings regarding Trump's classified-documents case.
46% : "The question is, Will they go away now, November, or December, or January when Trump takes office?" he said.
38% : Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and obstruct official proceedings.
36% : Trump bought the silence of adult film actress Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair, through the use of falsified business records.
33% : Using powers he will inherit as president, as well as reaping the rewards of his lawyer's past strategies and a little luck, Trump will return to the position as commander-in-chief with a clean legal slate.
33% : Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to "find" almost 12,000 votes that would give Trump a leg-up over Biden in the state.
30% : The case would create an unappealing "political firestorm," Douglas argued, and would once again prevent Trump from fulfilling his duties as president.
29% : But the case is frozen in a lucky break from Trump: Willis allegedly had an affair with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired, presenting a financial conflict of interest.
29% : The second is through the criminal-justice system, which, unless several legal experts are proven wrong, is unlikely to punish Trump further.
28% : The first is through impeachment, which Trump escaped from unscathed twice.
26% : Trump explicitly said he'd fire Smith "within two seconds" of returning to the presidency, leaving no one authorized to bring the cases forward.
25% : "The case can't be put on hold for four years because Trump has the right to speedy trial like any other criminal defendant," Rahmani said.
24% : Federal prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, charged Trump with four felony counts, including obstructing official proceedings and conspiracy to defraud the country.Smith also accused Trump of taking with him highly sensitive documents when he left the White House in January 2021, alleging the president-elect stashed the classified papers in his Mar-a-Lago home and showed them to government officials not authorized to see them.
24% : Smith charged Trump with 40 felony counts, 32 of which included "willful retention" of government documents under the Espionage Act.
24% : The president-elect now awaits sentencing for his conviction scheduled for November 26, but Americans are not going to see Trump behind bars anytime soon, in part because he's a first-time felon, and also because a judge would suspend a prison sentence to allow Trump to fulfill his presidential duties.
20% : Firing Smith also allows Trump to not have to pardon himself, a heavily speculated action that would call into question constitutional concerns, Douglas said.
19% : With Smith at the center of both cases against Trump, all the president-elect needs to do to have the cases dismissed is to fire the special counsel through his attorney general, Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College law professor and author of Will He Go: Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020, told Fortune.
18% : While Trump's example lays a foundation of how similar commanders-in-chief will or will not be confronted on alleged criminal wrongdoings, Trump has not just set a future precedent -- he's also set a precedent for his own upcoming second term.
12% : Should the case resume following an appealed decision by Trump to disqualify Willis, it's still unlikely to imminently impact Trump.
10% : Trump is awaiting sentencing following a New York hush-money case, which found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts, including violating the state's corporate record-keeping laws.
3% : Trump also faces an indictment in Georgia, which alleged that Trump spread lies about rampant voter fraud in Georgia after Biden won the state in the 2020 election.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.