WASHINGTON >> The indictment charging Donald Trump with hoarding classified documents leveled one jaw-dropping allegation after another, including that he showed off a secret Pentagon attack plan to guests at his golf club and suggested his lawyer mislead the FBI.

But those details proved beside the point to the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the prosecution, who dismissed the case on grounds that the special counsel who brought it was unlawfully put in the job.

A separate criminal case accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election seemed an opportunity for a trial this year focused on Trump’s failed effort to retain power after his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

But the Supreme Court erased that possibility with an opinion that granted former presidents expansive immunity from prosecution.

A year that began with the prospect of a federal court reckoning for Trump will end without any chance of a trial, leaving voters without the finality of a jury verdict in the two most consequential cases against the Republican presidential nominee. Yet both cases still loom over the election, their potential resurgence in the coming months making clear that at stake on Nov. 5 is not only the presidency but also possibly Trump’s liberty.

If Trump loses to Democrat Kamala Harris, he is at risk of trial and possible conviction in the classified documents case, assuming a federal appeals court revives it, or in the election interference case, where prosecutors issued a new indictment after the Supreme Court’s immunity opinion.

If Trump wins the White House, his attorney general could end both cases, and an already delayed sentencing in his state hush money case in New York — his only prosecution to reach a jury and end with a conviction — will be in even further flux.

That neither federal case made it to trial despite being brought well over a year ago highlights the complexities of prosecuting a former president and represents a vindication of sorts of the Trump team’s strategy of delay. It’s also a reflection of the immense hurdles prosecutors encountered before Republican-appointed judges, some of them selected by Trump, who in one case articulated a hugely expansive and novel view of presidential power and in the other appeared deeply skeptical of the prosecution’s premise well before derailing it.

“The reality is that efforts to hold the former president legally accountable (before the election), independent of the realm of politics, have failed in a wide variety of venues for a wide variety of reasons,” said Temple University law professor Craig Green.

“And what that means is it’s up to the American people” — not the courts — “what they have in mind for their future president.”

Florida dismissal

The dismissal of the classified documents indictment was especially stunning because the case was seen inside the Justice Department and by legal experts as the most legally straightforward of the Trump prosecutions. Unlike the election interference case, it concerned behavior that occurred after Trump had left office in January 2021 and for which federal prosecutions are routine.

The outcome followed nearly two years of tensions between prosecutors and Aileen Cannon, a federal judge in Fort Pierce, Florida, with scant trial experience whose relationship with special counsel Jack Smith’s team had long ago soured and whose willingness to entertain all manner of motions by Trump’s defense lawyers snarled the case before its dismissal.

An indication of just how far afield the case had strayed from core factual issues was evident during a June hearing where Cannon occupied herself with the so-called Reno Regulations, the Ethics in Government Act and an esoteric legal principle, the “de facto officer doctrine.”

By day’s end, the government’s simmering exasperation had boiled over, with prosecutor David Harbach complaining that because of Cannon’s persistent questions, he’d been able to make only one of his points.

“Mr. Harbach,” she snapped. “I don’t appreciate your tone. I think we’ve been here before, and I would expect decorum in this courtroom at all times.”

The hearing ended without a ruling.

But three weeks later, and two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Cannon dismissed the case. Siding with Trump’s arguments, she ruled that Smith had been appointed illegally by Attorney General Merrick Garland and should have been subject to confirmation by the Senate. Smith appealed, calling Cannon’s ruling contrary to decades of precedent.

It’s unclear how long it will take for the appeal to resolve, but if Cannon’s opinion is overturned and Trump loses the election, prosecutors would be able to resurrect compelling evidence accrued during the investigation.

Washington delay

Late last year, the judge overseeing Trump’s election interference case was pushing toward trial.

With an eye toward a March 2024 date, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan planned to summon District of Columbia residents to complete a questionnaire, a step toward winnowing the potential juror pool. Officials braced for a crush of reporters covering the historic trial.

It screeched to a halt in December.

From the start, allegations that Trump broke the law through actions he took in the White House seemed destined for a protracted court fight testing the limits of presidential power. So it was hardly surprising when Trump’s lawyers demanded the case’s dismissal, arguing he enjoyed absolute immunity from prosecution.

Chutkan, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, rejected the argument with a December ruling that said the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”

But she put the case on hold to give Trump time to appeal to Washington’s federal appeals court and ultimately the Supreme Court.

It would be nearly a year from the time the case was frozen before it was back in Chutkan’s courtroom. By then, the indictment was slimmed down, and it wasn’t clear when — if ever — there would be a trial.

The investigation into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — which has become the largest in Justice Department history — had consumed agents and prosecutors by the time Garland was sworn in as attorney general two months later.

Prosecutors had begun charging rioters through a bottom-up investigative strategy heavily focused on the most violent offenders who attacked police and far-right militia group members who were suspected of planning and coordination. Another investigative effort searching for financial ties between the rioters and Trump allies ultimately hit a dead end.

One year into the investigation, Garland defended the department’s deliberate pace as pressure mounted for the Justice Department to hold accountable more than just those who stormed the seat of American democracy.

The facts led squarely to Trump, according to a conspiracy and obstruction indictment filed nearly nine months after Smith’s appointment. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly maintained that he was entitled to challenge an election that he still insists was stolen even though judges and his own attorney general concluded otherwise.

The Trump team’s pursuit of immunity claims, which Chutkan swatted away without a hearing, snarled the case before it could ever develop.

After the Supreme Court denied Smith’s request to immediately take up the case, the federal appeals court heard arguments and joined Chutkan in turning aside the immunity claims. It would be another two months before the Supreme Court, in late April, said it was prepared to consider the case.

The justices issued their ruling on July 1, the last day of their term and more than nine weeks after arguments. The decision held that Trump was absolutely immune from prosecution for acts involving core constitutional functions — in the process, stripping from the indictment Trump’s dealings with the Justice Department — and at least presumptively immune for other official actions. The court also reaffirmed that no immunity exists for a president’s private acts, like those taken as a candidate.

But the justices didn’t spell out which allegations Trump could be prosecuted for, leaving it to Chutkan to decide. Smith subsequently filed a new indictment removing references to allegations prosecutors believed could be considered official acts.