Courtrooms and creditors likely to loom large in Trump’s

Each US president has charted a unique course after leaving the White House, taking up vocations from philanthropy to human rights to oil painting.

Donald Trump’s post-presidency appears likely to be taken up by meetings with lawyers and creditors, possible sworn depositions about tax practices or sexual assault allegations and, in some long-tail scenarios, fines, criminal charges, bankruptcy or other legal sanction.

With Trump gone from Washington, and now lacking the immunity protections of the presidency, prosecutors in at least three jurisdictions are either weighing or actively pursuing criminal cases against him, and a fourth prosecutor is investigating allegedly fraudulent business practices inside the Trump Organization.

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, is reportedly a major figure in two of the investigations, over more than $700,000 in “consulting fees” she allegedly received from the Trump Organization, which then allegedly claimed those fees as tax-deductible business expenses.

“This is harassment pure and simple,” Ivanka Trump tweeted in November, denying the allegations.

Donald Trump has long conducted himself, as a businessman and as president, as if the law did not apply to him or his cronies, dozens of whom he pardoned for crimes on the eve of his departure from office.

But criminal investigations now under way mean that the law might finally catch up to Trump in his post-presidency life, just as a $300m avalanche of debt coming due over four years that Trump has personally guaranteed threatens to sink him financially, according to a New York Times analysis of his tax records,

Trump has denied all wrongdoing, and his son Eric Trump has boasted that the Trump empire is healthy, with liquid real estate assets and branding opportunities overseas.

One solution to Trump’s financial woes might be suggested by the $170m he has raised since November, mostly from small donors, in a false “defend the election” campaign.

“You have a man who would get followed to the ends of the Earth by a hundred million Americans,” Eric Trump told the Associated Press, inflating by almost half the votes Trump received. “He created the greatest political movement in American history and his opportunities are endless.”

The legal hazards facing Trump can also seem endless. The Senate is preparing to hold a trial in Trump’s second impeachment, on charges that he incited the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol.

A conviction in the Senate is not only likely to result in Trump’s being barred from ever again holding office – it could increase the likelihood of criminal charges being brought against Trump by the US attorney’s office in Washington DC, which is investigating the attack on the Capitol.

“We are looking at all actors here, and anyone that had a role, if the evidence fits the element of a crime, they’re going to be charged,” acting US attorney Michael R Sherwin told reporters when asked directly about Trump, who directed…