Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard! Here’s One for The Trump Cases.

Even political junkies (and I admit, I’m one) are having difficulty following all the legal drama surrounding Donald Trump. There is an effort to kick Trump off the ballot on the grounds that he is an “insurrectionist” as defined in the 14^th Amendment. This has succeeded in three states – Colorado, Maine, and Illinois – and is proceeding in about twenty others. The Supreme Court is likely to rule this is unconstitutional in the coming days, but for now, it’s a live legal issue.

Then there’s the New York civil fraud case where Trump was found liable for about $450 million of damages, interest and penalties in a situation where no one was defrauded, and no one lost money. In fact, the bank lenders testified that the loans in question were repaid in full and that they would lend to Trump again if asked. That decision is now on appeal.

Then we have four criminal cases where Trump has been indicted on over 90 criminal counts. The January 6^th case is based in federal court in Washington, DC. The classified documents case is based in federal court in Palm Beach, Florida. The Stormy Daniels hush money case is based in New York State court in Manhattan. And the vote tampering RICO case is based in state court in Fulton County, Georgia.

All these venues were hand-picked because they are in heavily Democratic areas with strong anti-Trump bias in the jury pool. The January 6^th case is on hold pending a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity that may not be decided until late June. That may make it too late for that case to conclude before Election Day, which is one of the Democrats’ main goals.

The classified documents case is also tied up in procedural motions that may take months to untangle. The Georgia case is imploding around allegations of kickbacks to the prosecutor from her lover, who was hired as outside counsel, and possible perjury and witness tampering by the pair in trying to cover up their relationship. That case may actually be dismissed because of prosecutorial wrongdoing.

The only case that is proceeding on schedule (trial date is March 25) is the Stormy Daniels case. That presents some danger for Trump, but it’s also the flimsiest legal theory and could well result in acquittal or be reversed on appeal.

As they say at the baseball park, “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard!” Here’s your personal program to help understand some of the inside baseball in these cases.

Corporate leaders and institutional fiduciaries looking to incorporate state of the art predictive analytics to their risk mitigation and strategic analysis should click the link to learn more about Raven Predictive Analytics®.