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From Summer Zervos to Mary Trump: 9 major legal battles Trump will have to face once he leaves office

  • While in office, President Donald Trump has largely evaded the civil suits against him.
  • That could change once the president leaves office, which would be in January if he loses the election against former Vice President Joe Biden.
  • Legal experts who spoke to Business Insider previously said they believed Trump may face a number of legal headaches if he is voted out of office.
  • There are at least 9 major ongoing lawsuits that involve the president, ranging from defamation cases resulting from his sexual assault denials to allegations he and his children misled victims to sell goods for a multi-level marketing company.

Before and during his presidency, Donald Trump has been sued dozens of times. The lawsuits have alleged everything from business deals gone wrong to sexual assault.

Some cases have been resolved or dismissed. But a number of them remain active, suspended or slowed until he leaves office. He he will have to face the onslaught of lawsuits if he loses reelection and becomes a private citizen once again.

As Business Insider's Dave Levinthal previously reported, Trump will likely face a litany of federal investigations if he loses to former Vice President Joe Biden next month. He may also be indicted for his role in covering up hush-money payments to Karen McDougal — a plot that sent his former lawyer Michael Cohen to prison.

Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, told Business Insider there were several reasons Trump has been successful in avoiding court appearances.

"Part of it is the power of the presidency," he said. "Part of it is the slowness of the system. He is the target of a number of litigation matters and investigations, but he's been able to take advantage, for example in the Vance [tax record] case, of the extreme slowness of the system."

Some legal actions taken against Trump and his web of organizations have been successful. He, along with his children, agreed to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation after a New York state investigation found they repeatedly lied about charity work.

Some have been settled in arbitration, like the 2018 lawsuit from Noel Cintron, Trump's longtime driver, who alleged he was owed $200,000 in unpaid overtime. Other plaintiffs, like Alva Johnson, who alleged Trump kissed her without consent at a 2016 Florida rally, have dropped their lawsuits. "I'm fighting against a person with unlimited resources," she told the Daily Beast after dropping the case in 2019.

"There's going to be an accumulating number of these legal actions that are going to squeeze him more and more," Eisen said. "It will be more intense if he's not in the office and does not have the excuses of the presidency to block things. But in any event, he's facing accountability."

Here are nine of the ongoing lawsuits Trump still has to deal with.

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