Donald Trump made history last year when he became the first former US president to be charged with a crime (specifically, 34 felony counts stemming from the hush money payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels). Then, a few months later, he was indicted a second time for his handling of classified documents and allegedly obstructing justice. Several months after that, he was indicted a whopping third, then fourth time, for trying to overturn the 2020 election, in cases brought by the Justice Department and the Fulton County district attorney’s office. (He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.) On the civil front, he’s already been found liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, and for fraudulently inflating the value of his assets.

If you’re exhausted just reading all of the above, you’re probably not alone; at this point, keeping track of the cases against the ex-president, where they stand, and the potential penalties he is facing—both financial and in terms of prison time—is a full-time job. So here’s a handy guide to all the ways Donald Trump—who incidentally has a good and terrifying chance of becoming president again—is legally screwed. Or in some cases, may run out the clock and get off scot-free!

The New York fraud case

In September 2022, New York attorney general Letitia James sued Trump, Trump’s three eldest children,* and the Trump organization, accusing them of spending years lying to lenders and insurers about the value of Trump’s assets. A year later, Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump (and his adult sons, and his company) liable for fraud, and the following February, barred the ex-president from running a business in the state of New York for three years. More painfully, Engoron fined Trump and his eponymous company more than $350 million, a penalty that topped much more than that when taking interest into account.

In March, Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing that they had tried and failed to find a company willing to give the former guy a bond worth the $464 million he currently owes, with none agreeing to accept real estate as collateral. Even more humiliating: Despite spending his entire adult life bragging about how much money he has, Trump’s lawyers also admitted he doesn’t have the cash necessary to back the bond. (According to his attorneys, in order to post collateral, the ex-president would have to come up with approximately 120% of the judgment, or roughly $557.5 million.)

A full appellate court panel will soon hear Trump’s request for a stay of enforcement on the civil penalty, though given that an emergency appeals judge already rejected the plea, things aren’t looking great. James has already given the ex-president a 30-day grace period to put up the bond, and if she doesn’t extend it, she can start seizing his assets on March 25.

In maybe one of the funniest subplots to all this, shortly after Trump’s inability to obtain a bond emerged, conservative talk show host and Trump superfan Mark Levin demanded to know why no rich Republicans have offered to lend Trump the money, calling it, in all seriousness, “an outrage.”

As some have pointed out, the answer is probably: because they don’t believe Trump will pay them back.

The E. Jean Carroll cases

Last May, Trump was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her when he called her a liar after she went public with her allegations in 2019. For this, the ex-president was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million. Then, he decided to defame her some more, and in January, after being found liable for defamation again, he was ordered to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million. Two months later, Trump posted a $91 million bond and appealed the verdict, and after a brief period spent not attacking Carroll, resumed defaming her. Will he get his ass sued again? Following his remarks, Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan told The New York Times: “The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years. As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client.”

The hush money case

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg was the first prosecutor to indict Trump, and his case against the president—for allegedly falsifying business records, as part of a scheme to pay off and silence women who’d claimed they’d had an affair with Trump—was supposed to be the first criminal trial, starting March 25. But on March 15, the trial was delayed for at least 30 days after new evidence was disclosed by the Justice Department, which had previously investigated the matter itself. (In a court filing proposing the 30-day delay, Bragg blamed Trump’s legal team, saying that his prosecutors had asked the feds to turn over the evidence they had over a year ago—a request that was denied—and that Trump’s defense team waited until mid-January of this year to file a subpoena for the records.) Now, a hearing will take place on March 25, when Judge Juan Merchan will address questions about the newly released material; Trump’s lawyers have demanded a 90-day delay, meaning there is at least a nonzero chance this trial might not get underway until the summer.

If convicted, Trump could face up to four years in prison.

The classified-documents case

Last June, Trump was indicted for the second time in as many months on charges of illegally retaining national security documents after he left the White House, and then allegedly obstructing the Justice Department’s investigation into the matter. One month after that, he was hit with additional charges, with special counsel Jack Smith accusing the ex-president of asking a Mar-a-Lago staffer to delete video footage captured at the estate. According to the government, some of the documents that Trump took with him to Florida and refused to give back included information about the nuclear capabilities of the US and other countries, and a Pentagon “attack plan.” Obviously, this is gravely serious, as underscored by the fact that many of the felony charges fall under the Espionage Act. On a lighter, dumber note, the indictment against the former president alleges that after storing a number of boxes of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago’s “White and Gold Ballroom, [where] events and gatherings took place,” and then in the business center at the club, Trump had a number of them moved in April 2021 “to a bathroom...in The Mar-a-Lago Club’s Lake Room.” We’ll repeat that for emphasis: Trump had secret government documents moved to “a bathroom.” And as the photo helpfully included in the indictment shows, they were placed next to the toilet:

When is this trial happening? Smith most recently proposed July, though the judge overseeing the case, Trump appointee Aileen Cannon, has suggested that won’t happen. Oh, and speaking of Cannon, here’s a fun one from The Washington Post:

On Monday evening, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered the defense lawyers and the prosecutors in the case to file submissions outlining proposed jury instructions based on two scenarios, each of which badly misstates the law and facts of the case, according to legal experts.

She has given the sides two weeks to craft jury instructions around competing interpretations of the Presidential Records Act, often referred to as the PRA. While the law says presidential records belong to the public and are to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of a presidency, Trump’s lawyers have argued the PRA gave Trump the right to keep classified materials as his personal property.

“What she has asked the parties to do is very, very troubling,” Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts, said of Cannon. “She is giving credence to arguments that are on their face absurd. She is ignoring a raft of other motions, equally absurd, that are unreasonably delaying the case.”

“In my 30 years as a trial judge, I have never seen an order like this,” Jeremy Fogel, a former judge who currently runs the Berkeley Judicial Institute, told the Post.

Cannon has previously been accused of “sabotaging” the case against Trump; in 2022, when she made a series of rulings concerning the government investigation that preceded the charges against the ex-president, constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe declared that she was clearly “in the tank for Trump,” while Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor, wrote that she was “completely unfit to serve on the bench.”

If and when this case does go to trial, if convicted, Trump faces decades in prison. But if he can run out the clock until the election and get reelected? Smith’s case is over.

The Fulton County election case

Back in August, Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis accused Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, and charged him and 18 coconspirators with violating the state’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. (Three of the charges against Trump were later dropped.) Among the most incriminating allegations? That, according to the indictment, Trump told acting United States attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting United States deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue to “Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” (There’s also the infamous “find the votes” call.)

Trump’s attorneys attempted to derail the Fulton County case by claiming that Willis’s relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade was a conflict of interest and that the two should be removed. While a judge ruled the DA could stay on the case if Wade resigned—which he did—the same judge said this week that Trump can appeal his ruling.

In November, Willis said she did not expect a trial to conclude before the 2024 election, and at this point, it appears possible it won’t even start before then. On the bright side, unlike the federal cases, Trump cannot simply make this one go away with a self-pardon should he win reelection. (Though we should probably assume he’ll try, given that, as you’ve probably figured out by now, he’s not one for following rules.)

The federal election case

Hey, remember when Donald Trump tried to steal a second term in office, a plot that included inciting a violent attack on the US Capitol? A lot of people, including the federal government, think he should be held accountable for that, and federal prosecutors charged him last August with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. But will Trump be held accountable? Uh, it’s not looking great! While a trial was originally scheduled for March 4, the whole thing is now up in the air thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Trump’s claims of immunity. Given that the court will not even hear arguments until the end of April, and may not rule until June, the best-case scenario** would likely see the trial not starting until the fall. And if he wins reelection it’s obviously game over.

*The case against Ivanka Trump was later dismissed.

**As in, one in which SCOTUS doesn’t agree that former presidents should be immune from prosecution.