Of the criminal cases against Trump, Georgia’s may be the most important | Moira Donegan

If Trump loses again in 2024, he faces not only embarrassment but the prospect of jail time. We should all fear what he might do to avoid it

Whether they like it or not, the three prosecutors who have now indicted Donald Trump in four different cases - the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who is bringing charges in the Stormy Daniels hush money case; the special counsel Jack Smith, who is bringing federal charges against Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents and January 6 cases; and now Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney who is bringing state charges against Trump regarding his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in Georgia - are now the former president's political opponents. They pose a greater risk to his political future than any of his primary rivals.

This, at least, is how Trump is behaving as his presidential campaign lumbers toward 2024: as if he's running against the prosecution. For one thing, Trump is acting like the prosecutions are political attacks. In the lead-up to the Georgia indictment, he aired TV ads attacking Willis. And for another, the cases are costing him a tremendous amount of money. A Pac that the former president is using to pay his mounting legal fees, Save America, recently requested a refund of a donation it had made to another group supporting Trump's re-election effort. The money couldn't go to campaign efforts, as had been planned, because it was needed to pay the legal fees. That's how rapidly lawyers' bills are adding up for the former president and his long list of indicted allies.