The Slatest

This May Be the Strongest Legal Case Against Trump

Political scientists rank which Trump cases are most likely to stick.

Donald Trump.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Donald Trump has been indicted twice so far this year, and two more probes could result in charges by the end of the summer. What are the chances that any of them result in a conviction? Bright Line Watch, a political research group, surveyed hundreds of political scientists to see what they believe to be the most legally sound case against the former president.

Bright Line Watch surveyed 569 political scientists this summer, from June 29 to July 11. They asked a range of questions about the various offenses Trump has been linked to: making a hush money payment (connected to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment), mishandling classified documents (the Department of Justice’s recent indictment), interfering in the 2020 election (the focus of both another DOJ investigation and of Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation), and last, inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (which Jack Smith is also considering in his election interference investigation).

Political science experts were nearly unanimous in believing in the factual basis of the DOJ’s classified documents case—that Trump did bring classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago property, stored them in unsecured locations, showed them to people without security clearances, and attempted to obstruct the federal investigation into the matter. All in all, 94 percent of experts believed Trump had committed a crime here.

Experts believed interfering in the 2020 election was the second-strongest offense when considering whether Trump committed a crime, followed by the allegations surrounding Jan. 6. Bragg’s hush money charges earned the least support from experts.

Faith in the DOJ’s classified documents case was so strong that 66 percent of experts believed it should result in a prison sentence, while 25 percent supported a fine or probation. Only about 2 percent of experts said Trump should not face any punishment in that case.

The classified documents case has a significant advantage because of ample visual evidence. When special counsel Jack Smith unsealed the DOJ’s indictment, it included tons of pictures of cardboard boxes, allegedly filled with classified documents, strewn about Mar-a-Lago, from storage rooms to ballrooms and even in a bathroom. Smith’s investigation into Jan. 6 also includes compelling evidence, including witness testimony shared during the House Jan. 6 committee hearings and thousands of internal emails and text messages.

“The [classified] documents evidence is more cut-and-dry in terms of legal violation than even what’s been made public about Jan. 6,” Brendan Nyhan, a professor at Dartmouth College and co-director at Bright Line Watch, told me in an interview. “The indictments that are likely forthcoming are going to rely on secondhand accounts of complex events and may seem less compelling or straightforward.”

That classified documents evidence seems to have been persuasive to nonexperts, too. Bright Line Watch also posed some questions to a representative sample of 2,776 Americans from across the political spectrum and found that 25 percent of Republicans felt Trump committed a crime in his handling of classified documents. In response to a similar survey back in October, before the evidence was unveiled, only 9 percent of Republicans felt he committed a crime.
Looking at the two criminal cases Trump has been charged in so far, 57 percent of experts felt the former president is more likely to be convicted in the classified documents case, while only 10 percent believed Bragg’s hush money case would more likely lead to a conviction. About 33 percent of experts said the probability of a conviction was about equally likely in both cases.

The evidence in the classified documents case is so strong, it could possibly even weaken the other cases against Trump, the Bright Line Watch researchers argued. “The detailed and extensively documented charges related to classified materials establish a high evidentiary standard that could shape perceptions of other cases against Trump.”

The results show how tricky it can be to assess a situation when there are multiple cases unfolding in different jurisdictions at once—especially when they’re focused on a former U.S. president. “It makes one consider: Under what conditions could a prosecution of a high-profile political figure be seen as legitimate?” Nyhan said. Respondents (both experts and nonexperts) who considered Trump’s classified documents case first were less likely to say Trump had committed a crime in the other cases—interfering in the 2020 election, inciting an insurrection, or making hush money payments.

Bright Line Watch also tried to measure the perception that Trump is being politically targeted, and saw mixed results depending on the charges being considered. Only 15 percent of experts said anyone other than Trump would not have been indicted in the classified documents case, while 32 percent felt Trump is being singled out on the hush money charges.

Because Bragg was the first to announce his indictment, Nyhan argues that may have “colored” the way that subsequent cases were interpreted by experts, potentially making them seem weaker. “That’s one that’s seen as potentially reflective of a kind of double standard, or targeting based on the identity of the person in question,” said Nyhan.

All in all, an overwhelming majority—81 percent—of experts said the evidentiary standard for prosecuting a former president should be the same as it is for the average American. Only 15 percent believed the evidentiary standard should be higher, and there was almost no support for suggestions that it should be lower.

“Despite all the efforts to keep these prosecutions outside of the scope of partisan politics, I worry about forgoing criminal prosecution simply because of the political status and partisan identity of the person in question,” said Nyhan. “This is one of many impossible choices that Trump has presented us with in his time in the political scene.”