It was not long after Eric Adams became mayor of New York City in 2022 that the comparisons with Donald J. Trump started. Mr. Adams called himself the Biden of Brooklyn, but his style was far more similar to the man President Biden defeated in the 2020 election. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Adams has repeatedly bashed the press coverage he has received since he took office. “We have to tell our news publications: Enough, enough, enough,” said Mr. Adams, who is a former police officer and the city’s second Black mayor and who created his own newsletter to circumvent the local media covering him, in late 2022. Both try to demonstrate what Mr. Adams has called “swagger,” a macho patina of toughness. Both have projected law-and-order strength while surrounding themselves with people under legal scrutiny of their own. And both have insisted they’re victims of political efforts to prosecute them for their stances on issues, prosecutions that they insist are the real corruption, not their own actions. Mr. Adams will now test how far he can take the Trump playbook in seeking to remain in office. It remains to be seen whether the forces of political gravity that usually come with an indictment will drag him down. Mr. Trump will face a similar test in less than six weeks of whether his criminal travails will prevent him from winning the presidential election despite broad support within his party. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F27%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-adams-indictments-analysis.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F27%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-adams-indictments-analysis.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F27%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-adams-indictments-analysis.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F27%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-adams-indictments-analysis.html).

President-elect Donald Trump was [indicted four times](https://www.vox.com/trump-investigations/2023/8/17/23832734/trump-indictment-democracy-paradox) — including two indictments arising out of his failed attempt to steal the 2020 election. One of these indictments [even yielded a conviction](https://www.vox.com/politics/352465/trump-convicted-felon-elections), albeit on 34 relatively minor charges of falsifying business records. But the extraordinary protections the American system gives to sitting presidents will ensure that Trump won’t be going to prison. He’s going to the White House instead. Two of the indictments against Trump are federal, and two were brought by state prosecutors in New York and Georgia. The federal indictments (one about Trump’s role in [fomenting the January 6 insurrection](https://www.vox.com/2023/8/1/23810131/trump-indictment-charges-jan-6-jack-smith-supreme-court), and the other about his [handling of classified documents](https://www.vox.com/politics/360735/trump-classified-documents-case-cannon-dismissed-indictment)) are the most immediately vulnerable. Once Trump becomes president, he will have full command and control over the US Department of Justice, and can simply order it to drop all the federal charges against him. Once he does, those cases will simply go away. The White House does have a [longstanding norm of non-interference with criminal prosecutions](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/restoring-integrity-independence-u-s-justice-department/), but this norm is nothing more than that — a voluntary limit that past presidents placed on their own exercise of power in order to prevent politicization of the criminal justice system. As president, Trump is under no constitutional obligation to obey this norm. He nominates the attorney general, and he can fire the head of the Justice Department at any time. Indeed, Trump is reportedly considering Aileen Cannon, a judge who has consistently tried to sabotage one of the Justice Department’s prosecutions of Trump, to be [the US attorney general](https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-tossed-trumps-classified-docs-case-list-proposed/story?id=114997807). Cannon, who oversees Trump’s federal classified documents’ trial, even tried to [disrupt the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump](https://www.vox.com/2023/6/13/23757893/aileen-cannon-donald-trump-jack-smith-indictment-mar-a-lago-maga) before he was indicted. There’s no indication that her apparent loyalty to Trump would diminish if she becomes the nation’s top prosecutor. The fate of the state charges against Trump is a little more uncertain, in large part because there’s never been a state indictment of a sitting president before, so there are no legal precedents governing what happens if a state attempts such a prosecution (or, in the case of New York, to impose a serious sentence on a president who was already convicted). It is highly unlikely that the state prosecutions can move forward, however, at least until Trump leaves office. On the federal level, the Department of Justice has long maintained that [it cannot indict a sitting president for a variety of practical reasons](https://www.justice.gov/file/146241-0/dl?inline): The burden of defending against criminal charges would diminish the president’s ability to do their job, as would the “public stigma and opprobrium occasioned by the initiation of criminal proceedings.” Additionally, if the president were incarcerated, that would make it “physically impossible for the president to carry out his duties.” There’s little doubt that the current Supreme Court, which recently held that Trump is [immune to prosecution for many crimes he committed while in office](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf), would embrace the Justice Department’s reasoning. The Court’s decision in _Trump v. United States_, the immunity case, rested on the Republican justices’ belief that, if a president could be indicted for official actions taken in office, he “would be chilled from taking the ‘bold and unhesitating action’ required of an independent Executive.” The kind of justices who favor such “bold and unhesitating action” over ensuring presidential accountability to the law are unlikely to tolerate a prosecution of a sitting president. These same practical considerations would apply with equal force to a state prosecution of a president, and there’s also one other reason why a constitutional limit on state indictments of the president makes sense. Without such a limit, a state led by the president’s political enemies could potentially bring frivolous criminal charges against that president. This argument may not seem particularly compelling when applied to a convicted criminal like Donald Trump. But imagine if, say, Ron DeSantis’s Florida had attempted to indict, try, and imprison President Joe Biden. Or if the state of Mississippi had indicted President Lyndon Johnson to punish him for signing civil rights legislation that ended Jim Crow. In constitutional law, the same rule that applies to liberal democratic presidents like Biden or Johnson must also apply to an anti-democratic president like Trump. One open question is whether Trump could be incarcerated during the lame-duck period before he is sworn into office. The only state that could conceivably do this is New York, the only place where Trump has been convicted. Trump is currently [scheduled for a sentencing hearing on November 26 in that case](https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/judge-delays-trumps-sentencing/index.html). The question of whether an already-convicted president-elect can be incarcerated is unique — this situation has thankfully never arisen before in US history, so there’s no definitive law on this subject. But it’s worth noting that neither the New York prosecutors nor the judge overseeing this case have pushed for a quick sentencing process. Judge Juan Merchan chose to [delay sentencing until after the election](https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/judge-delays-trumps-sentencing/index.html), and the prosecution did not oppose this move. Merchan may decide to delay matters even further now that Trump has won the election. And even if the sentencing does move forward, the charges against Trump in New York are relatively minor, and [could only result in him being fined or sentenced to probation](https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/judge-delays-trumps-sentencing/index.html). Again, there’s never been a state prosecution of a sitting president before, so there are no precedents to rely on here. It’s possible that, once Trump leaves office, New York or Georgia (the other state with an open case against Trump) may try to resume its long-pending prosecutions against him — although that assumes that the 78-year-old Trump survives his second term in office, and that these states still have the will to prosecute him four years from now. The bottom line is that these prosecutions are likely dead. And they are almost certainly going nowhere for the next four years. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we believe in helping everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help to shape it. Our mission is to create clear, accessible journalism to empower understanding and action. If you share our vision, please consider supporting our work by becoming a _Vox Member_. Your support ensures Vox a stable, independent source of funding to underpin our journalism. If you are not ready to become a Member, even small contributions are meaningful in supporting a sustainable model for journalism. Thank you for being part of our community.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief See More: * [Criminal Justice](https://www.vox.com/criminal-justice) * [Donald Trump](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump) * [Policy](https://www.vox.com/policy) * [Politics](https://www.vox.com/politics) * [Supreme Court](https://www.vox.com/scotus)

Donald J. Trump’s chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, had seen just about everything in his three races working for the controversy-stoking former president. But even he seemed to be bracing for bad news. Mr. Trump had just debated Vice President Kamala Harris, repeatedly taking her bait, wasting time litigating his crowd sizes and spreading baseless rumors about pet-eating immigrants. Mr. Fabrizio had predicted to colleagues that brutal media coverage of Mr. Trump’s performance in a debate watched by 67 million people would lift Ms. Harris in the polls. He was right about the media coverage but wrong about the rest. His first post-debate poll shocked him: Ms. Harris had gained on some narrow attributes, like likability. But Mr. Trump had lost no ground in the contest. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mr. Fabrizio said on a call with senior campaign leaders, according to two participants. It was yet more proof — as if more were needed — of Mr. Trump’s durability over nearly a decade in politics and of his ability to defy the normal laws of gravity. He overcame seemingly fatal political vulnerabilities — four criminal indictments, three expensive lawsuits, conviction on 34 felony counts, endless reckless tangents in his speeches — and transformed at least some of them into distinct advantages. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F07%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fhow-trump-won-and-how-harris-lost.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F07%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fhow-trump-won-and-how-harris-lost.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F07%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fhow-trump-won-and-how-harris-lost.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F07%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fhow-trump-won-and-how-harris-lost.html).

President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that he would name Todd Blanche, who oversaw his legal defense against multiple indictments, to become the No. 2 official at the Justice Department. The selection of Mr. Blanche, a former supervising federal prosecutor in Manhattan, as the deputy attorney general at the Justice Department serves as a pointed rebuke to the criminal cases against him. A day earlier, Mr. Trump selected Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and a caustic critic of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, to become attorney general. Mr. Blanche was Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer at his trial in New York state court this year, which ended in the former president being convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records, over a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star. Mr. Blanche forged a unique connection to the president-elect this year, having defended him at trial. For weeks inside a Manhattan criminal courthouse, Mr. Trump and Mr. Blanche sat inches apart, often whispering to each other during long days of legal arguments and testimony. In defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Blanche assembled a legal team that had to fight simultaneously on multiple legal fronts, all amid the pressure of a presidential campaign. Mr. Blanche, 50, left a prestigious law firm to represent Mr. Trump, a client whom few major firms were willing to represent. That gamble now appears to have paid off handsomely for Mr. Blanche. The defense strategy for all of the indictments against Mr. Trump could be boiled down to one word: delay. And in most of the cases it worked, if not exactly how he and his team initially envisioned. Along the way, Mr. Blanche often faced blistering criticism from judges who disliked Trump’s legal arguments, or the candidate’s bombast outside the courtroom. As a young prosecutor, Mr. Blanche handled violent crimes cases in Manhattan federal court, eventually becoming a supervisor in that work. After leaving the prosecutor’s office, he became a private practice defense lawyer. Others on Mr. Trump’s defense team are also in line to receive top assignments: He said he would name Emil Bove, who defended the president in the hush money case, as principal associate deputy attorney general, and D. John Sauer, who represented Mr. Trump before the Supreme Court in arguing that the former president was entitled to broad immunity, as solicitor general.

The Trump Organization says it has leased its brand to two new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — [The Trump Organization](https://apnews.com/article/business-new-york-manhattan-donald-trump-government-and-politics-86177401a887c85ab50d8b78eb1ed397) said Monday it has leased its brand to two new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. It will partner with Dar Global, a London-based luxury real estate developer that will lease the Trump brand but fully own and develop the projects in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The two have partnered on other projects in the region, including the development of [a golf resort in neighboring Oman](https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-donald-trump-jamal-khashoggi-aa66c8d54fa34c9d041d3098ae2cdf96). “Following the remarkable success of Trump International Oman, as well as our most recent ventures in Dubai and Jeddah, we are thrilled to announce two additional projects in Riyadh,” Eric Trump, the president-elect’s son who oversees the company's real estate interests, said in a statement. [Trump’s company](https://apnews.com/article/politics-manhattan-donald-trump-indictments-subpoenas-69a6028ab81d369bcc6276fead664954) struck many real estate licensing deals overseas before he entered the White House in 2017, including for hotels and residential towers in Canada, Dubai, Mexico, India and Turkey. Trump’s close ties to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and day-to-day ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, drew heavy criticism after the 2018 killing of [Jamal Khashoggi](https://apnews.com/hub/jamal-khashoggi), a Saudi columnist for the Washington Post who had written critically about the monarchy. Trump’s son-in-law and former senior aide, Jared Kushner, has also drawn scrutiny from Democrats for a reported $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund for his investment fund, which he started after he left the White House. Kushner had served as Trump's point man for the Middle East and helped broker the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Dar Global is the international arm of Dar Al Arkan, a large Saudi developer. It says it has $7.5 billion worth of projects under development in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, the United Kingdom, Spain and Saudi Arabia.