'At this point Trump has essentially won all four court cases'

CONVICTED criminal Donald Trump has swapped the prospect of a prison cell for the opulence of the White House and will now have the chance to quash charges being brought against him after storming back into power.

- Paul Jeeves

Had he lost the election, Trump was facing the prospect of four looming court cases, 91 charges and potentially dying behind bars.

But these cases are now set to be suspended and ultimately quashed due to presidential impunity, delivered by the US authorities' strong precedent not to jail a sitting premier.

Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law Centre in Washington, said: "At this point, Trump has essentially won in all four cases."

This outcome was deemed to be one of the driving forces behind the 78-year-old's determination to reclaim the presidency.

And victory has effectively handed him the power to halt the two federal and two state cases hanging over him.

The first of the two federal cases involves accusations that he mishandled classified documents.

The second concerns him seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. In one of the state cases, Trump was found guilty in New York earlier this year of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a "hush money" payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels.