Morning Distribution for Wednesday, August 2, 2023

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Morning Distribution]( Wednesday, August 2, 2023 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [Former President Donald Trump’s growing list of indictments may throw a wrench into his campaign schedule next year.]( [All Of Trump’s Indictments Could Seriously Bog Down His Campaign]( By [Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux]( Former President Donald Trump’s year just got even busier. On Tuesday, Trump was [indicted by special counsel Jack Smith]( on four counts: conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, conspiracy to violate people’s rights, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and the actual obstruction of an official proceeding. That’s on top of two other sets of criminal charges filed against Trump in just the past five months — one from [the Manhattan district attorney]( and another from Smith’s team, involving [separate federal charges](. And this week’s indictment may not be the last of Trump’s legal troubles. [Within the next few weeks]( Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis may ask a grand jury in Georgia to issue charges in a separate long-running investigation into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, and Trump could be a target. All of this means that by the end of the summer, Trump could be a defendant in four different criminal cases in four different courtrooms. That might not stop him from getting the Republican nomination — in fact, the [first set of charges may actually have helped him](. But even if they don’t damage him among his base, the indictments could hurt Trump simply by sucking up his time and attention. If he wants to avoid a conviction while running for president, he may need to spend a lot of energy dealing with these cases — leaving him with less bandwidth to campaign. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: July Was Hot As Hell. Do Voters Care?]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.