I beat Donald Trump in court

If all goes to plan, the first of Trump’s four trials will begin in Washington on 4 March. In the “J6” case, he stands accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election result by driving a mob to storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. 

Snell believes this is the strongest of the cases against Trump. It’s also the trial that could inflict the biggest political damage on him, he says. The public may see Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, and his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, testifying against him. 

Still, Trump’s behaviour and the politics surrounding the trial means it could be one of the most intense courtroom battles in legal history. This is what drove Snell to write his new book, Taking Down Trump, in which he sets out 12 rules that prosecutors should follow to overcome the former president’s ferocious tactics and secure convictions. 

After he took up the Trump University case in 2011, Snell suffered from the “counter-attack machine”. “His lawyers attacked me and my professional ethics – they accused me of fabricating the witness testimony,” he says. This was “absolutely baseless”. 

Back then, however, Trump didn’t have an army of angry supporters to whip up. The atmosphere around the four trials this year is expected to be far more febrile and dangerous, with the man they adore refusing to rule out the chance of a civil war. 

“The biggest threat would be if the insults lead to violence,” says Snell. “We’re getting closer and closer to a really horrible place. I do believe that at some point, some of the things that he is saying as rhetoric will be interpreted literally by his people.” 

Judge Arthur Engoron, overseeing an ongoing civil fraud trial against Trump in New York, has already received a bomb threat after the former president called him “corrupt”. Trump also claimed that the judge’s clerk and even Engoron’s wife are part of a “witch hunt” against him. He called the New York attorney general, Letitia James, “very corrupt and incompetent”, saying she is “racist” and carrying out “election interference”.