Is Trump’s 2024 comeback in jeopardy or stronger than ever? Find out how the impeachment saga could be the deciding factor!

Here’s what you need to know:

How bad is that for Trump?

The indictment is unlikely to worry, and perhaps even rouse, many of Trump’s hardcore supporters. Trump himself revealed the charges Thursday night, using the phrase “boxes hoax.” Truth Social post— and he quickly sent out an appeal for funds, arguing the charges were “nothing more than a heinous act of electoral interference by the ruling party.”

At the Republican conventions in , Trump was received like a hero Georgia And North Carolina On Saturday, he called Joe Biden a “completely corrupt president” and the federal indictment a “political bull’s eye.”

Supporters of his Who spoke to the BBC said, among other things, that “nothing I’ve read about the charges changes my mind” and “it’s pretty obvious that the charges are politically motivated.”

His main rivals for the Republican Party presidential nomination have so far avoided attacking him directly over the impeachment. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the takes second place in polls of Republican candidates, tweeted that “arming federal law enforcement poses a deadly threat to a free society” and vowed to “hold the DOJ accountable” if he wins the White House.

Asa Hutchinson tweeted that Trump should drop out of the race and “put the good of the country ahead of his candidacy,” while Chris Christie added“No one is above the law, no matter how much they wish they were.” But the former governors of Arkansas and New Jersey, respectively, are trail bad in the polls.

At the other end of the spectrum of possibilities, Trump could not only lose the presidency race, he could also be convicted and end up behind bars. Four of the seven charges against him carry a maximum sentence of 20 years, two of five years and one of 10 years.

But it’s more likely that if convicted he would be sentenced to house arrest with an ankle monitor, says Kel McClanahan, a law professor at George Washington University told insider.

Will it destroy Trump’s comeback in 2024?

Not necessarily, but it contributes to growing legal problems that could scare off independent voters, who are crucial to winning general elections.

The Georgia Attorney General may be close to deciding whether to press charges based on an investigation investigates whether Trump and his allies broke state law by attempting to overturn the 2020 election result. The 34 charges against Trump in New York revolved around falsifying business records and paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels to silence her over an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election.

With the document case compounding these and other legal difficulties, Trump’s Republican nomination may now face greater risk — polls conducted after the indictment was unveiled will give us a better sense of that.

Should Trump’s support among Republicans wane — which isn’t a given — DeSantis will benefit. That would probably please Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, who tweeted Last November, he announced he would support Florida’s governor in a 2024 run for the White House, adding that he prefers “someone sane and centrist.”

Of course “Teflon Don” has that survived two impeachment trials, so few would ignore him at this point. The current indictment also means Trump will receive massive media coverage, which could make other GOP candidates seem small and uninteresting in comparison to many Republican voters.

Still, no former US president has yet faced federal criminal charges, so we’re in uncharted territory.

Will more shoes fall?

Much now depends on the decisions of Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge randomly chosen This is the case in Florida. She is scheduled to preside in Miami when Trump appears in federal court on Tuesday afternoon.

Trump’s legal team may try to slow the court case so that the trial is not scheduled until after the 2024 election — perhaps in hopes that a Republican, whether Trump or another candidate, wins the White House and closes the case.

What the pre-trial and trial calendars look like — and how much time pre-trial motions take — will depend largely on Cannon.

There are “ample opportunities to slow things down, and when you have a judge who is willing to slow things down, it becomes very difficult to predict when a trial will come about,” said Samuel Buell, a Duke University law professor told The New York Times. “There could be some out-of-left-field judgments here.”

Cannon surprised legal experts last fall decide for it of Trump’s request to appoint a special agent to review documents seized by the FBI in Mar-a-Lago. The move at least temporarily prevented federal prosecutors from continuing their investigation into the documents. A federal appeals court in December completed the special master’s examination and harshly criticized Cannon’s decision. Still, her ruling delayed the criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of the documents by nearly three months.

Legal experts from across the political spectrum criticized Cannon for the ruling. It remains to be seen if the setback pushes them to take things more linearly and narrowly this time.

What’s so terrible about the charge?

Many people will wonder if keeping the classified documents was really that bad on Trump’s part. For years, experts and legislators have argued with the overclassification of documents is widespread in the federal government, where much information is kept secret for no reason.

Both President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence retained confidential documents after their tenure as Vice President. pence was recently deletedwhile an investigation into Biden’s handling of such documents is being conducted is in progress (He noted that he volunteered opened his house to the investigators).

What makes the Trump case notable is that, according to the indictment, he actively attempted to hide classified documents from authorities by directing his aides to move them from one Mar-a-Lago neighborhood to another, and leaked these documents to people without security clearance, while also pointing out that he knew some of them were classified.

The documents contained information about US nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliatory measures in response to foreign attacks, the indictment said.

“The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could endanger the national security of the United States,” the indictment said. “Trump had no authority to possess or keep these classified documents.”

Still, Trump was not convicted.

“It is very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” Smith, who has overseen the Trump investigation, said in one opinion delivered on Friday. “To that end, my office will seek expeditious litigation on this matter.”

But he noted, “We have one law in this country, and it applies to everyone.”