Top political courtroom moments of 2024
President-elect Donald Trump, President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk were among just some of the well-known political figures who were ordered to court in 2024.
The year saw a flurry of election-related lawsuits play out in swing states across the country, the winding down special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into the president-elect, and a July Supreme Court decision that expanded the view of presidential immunity–among many other things.
As this year comes to a close, here is a look at some of the top political courtroom moments of 2024.
Trump trial in Manhattan
President-elect Donald Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury in April on 34 charges of falsifying business records stemming from payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels— which he railed against at the time as a “corrupt trial” and a “disgrace.”
Trump’s sentencing hearing, originally planned for July 11, was delayed by Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan in light of the 2024 election and Trump’s status as the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, four days ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
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His decisive victory in November added further pressure on Merchan to dismiss the charges.
Last week, Merchan granted Trump’s request to file a motion to dismiss the charges, giving the president-elect’s legal team until Dec. 2 to submit the motion for dismissal—and giving Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team of prosecutors until Dec. 9 to respond.
Merchan also adjourned the sentencing date for Trump from the schedule, which Trump spokesperson and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung describing it as a “decisive win” for the president-elect.
Still, the trial dominated news headlines throughout the 2024 campaign, including Trump’s repeated characterizations that the case was politically motivated and that the presiding judge was “corrupt.”
Federal cases in D.C., Florida
Special Counsel Jack Smith moved to drop two federal cases against president-elect Donald Trump this week— acknowledging Trump’s return to the White House, and long-held Justice Department policy that precludes the department from investigating a sitting president.
Smith was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2020.
Prosecutors are guided by an Office of Legal Counsel memo first filed in 2000, which upholds a Watergate-era argument that asserts it is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine for the Justice Department to investigate a sitting president. Such proceedings, the memo states, would “unduly interfere in a direct or formal sense with the conduct of the Presidency.”
In their filing, Smith and his team made clear that their winding down of both cases is based solely on these protections afforded sitting presidents, rather than a reflection of the cases themselves. “That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” prosecutors said in a filing.
Trump, however, took to social media to revel in the outcome. “I persevered, against all odds, and WON,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Supreme Court expands presidential immunity
The Supreme Court ruled in July that Trump should be granted absolute immunity from prosecution for actions taken while exercising any of his “core constitutional powers” as president. The 6-3 decision, which split justices along party lines, expanded the notion of presidential immunity not only in Trump’s case, but for past and future presidents as well.
A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken while holding office, the justices said.
Still, the decision did not specify whether a president is to be afforded the same level of constitutional protection for state convictions, however, and the matter has never been tested in court.
Elon Musk sued over pro-Trump PAC’s $1m daily giveaways
Philadelphia’s top prosecutor, Larry Krasner, sued Elon Musk in an effort to stop his Trump-backed PAC from conducting daily, $1 million giveaways to swing state voters in the run-up to the Nov. 5 elections, describing them as an “illegal lottery” that violated Pennsylvania law.
The civil lawsuit claimed that both Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, were “lulling Philadelphia citizens” and others in the Commonwealth to “give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million,” through its daily giveaway scheme. It also argued that the giveaways violated consumer protection laws in Pennsylvania, citing “deceptive” and “misleading” statements Musk made about the nature of the contest.
Krasner’s office and Musk’s attorneys sparred over whether the case should be held in federal or state court, and when the proceedings should take place (Musk lost his bid to have the case heard in federal court).
Earlier this month, Musk’s legal team admitted to Judge Angelo Foglietta that there “is no prize to be won” and winners “are not chosen at random.” Rather, Musk’s attorneys said they selected registrants who could best serve as spokespeople for the pro-Trump America PAC, and described the $1 million payments as a “salary” given to these people.
Krasner, in response, described the scheme as a “political marketing masquerading as a lottery,” and a “grift.”
Ultimately, though, the D.A.’s office requested last week that lawsuit against Musk and his America PAC be dropped.
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Hunter Biden case: Testimony from exes, familial support
Hunter Biden’s criminal trial in Wilmington, Delaware, dominated headlines this summer. A jury ultimately found Hunter guilty on all charges in the case, which centered on whether he made false statements in his 2018 purchase of a firearm—but it also laid bare some personal family moments, such as the testimony of Hunter’s daughter, Naomi Biden, as well as several ex-girlfriends. Throughout the trial, Jill Biden was a fixture in the courtroom, and sat behind her son as he faced days of painful testimony.
Three of Hunter Biden’s ex-girlfriends took the stand as part of that trial: A long list of witnesses that included Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, with whom he shares three children. The two called it quits in 2017 after Buhle found a crack pipe on the side porch of their home, she recounted during her testimony.
The court also heard testimony from Hallie Biden, Hunter’s former sister-in-law-turned-girlfriend, whom Hunter began dating in 2015, after Hunter’s brother and Hallie’s husband, Beau, died from brain cancer. The two had an on-and-off romantic relationship until around 2019, and during her testimony, Hallie recounted how Hunter had introduced her to crack cocaine (she became sober in 2018.)
“It was a terrible experience I went through, and I was embarrassed and ashamed. … I regret that period of my life,” Hallie Biden told the court on Thursday about her use of crack cocaine.
Flurry of election-related court cases
Lawyers for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party filed a flurry of lawsuits in major swing states in the run-up to Election Day, with the majority of legal challenges centered in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—or the battleground states considered most likely to help pick the president.
High-profile cases were also seen in Virginia and Pennsylvania, prompting two Supreme Court decisions in the days before the election.
In Virginia, the Supreme Court granted the state’s emergency appeal to halt a lower court decision ordering it to restore the names of 1,600 voters to its voter rolls, delivering a temporary victory to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the state’s attorney general, who had appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
In Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allowed for the counting of certain provisional ballots, in a blow to the state GOP and Republican National Committee.
As a whole, lawsuits filed by political parties are not uncommon, analysts told Fox News Digital, though this year saw an uptick in preliminary lawsuits, which served as “placeholder” of sorts for each party to note a preexisting complaint in a swing state and possibly revisit, post-election.
That was not the case this year, however, as Trump saw decisive victories in the 2024 race. Republicans also wrested back and maintained majorities in both the Senate and House, respectively.
“In the five presidential elections I’ve covered, I don’t think any pre-election challenge had a huge impact,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital in the run-up to Election Day.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.